How do you want Israel to respond when 1200 of its own are murdered by a terrorist group? Consider that the US went to war after 9/11. I don't see anything outlandish about Israel's response here when compared with the US.

So what? Israel is limited to inflicting 1200 deaths on Hamas/Palestine but the US isn't when it's attacked?

Why is only Israel bound by proportionality? Your position isn't consistent.

...So proportionality applies only to Israel and not the US in 1941? Why do you apply this principle so selectively?

Hamas aims to eliminate Israel/Jews; Israel aims to eliminate Hamas. Perfectly proportional. In the long run it works out better for the Palestinians who will no longer be oppressed by Hamas. Call it liberation.

23,000 includes Hamas dead.

2400 Americans died in Pearl Harbor. Yet we invaded and went on to kill hundreds of thousands if not a million or so Japanese. Was that also unfair? Do we only get to kill 2400 of them?

So does Israel get to kill 1200 palestinians then and rape some palestinian women? would that be fair? or does it mean Israel gets to kill 1200 hamas members but no more? but what about those who ordered the massacre, you know, the government in charge? which has vowed to do 10/7 again and again?

The Allies' goal wasn't to displace an entire people and ethnically cleanse the area of Palestinians. So this is false. You have an idiotic idea of restraint, where the capability to do worse is proof of restraint. That's the abusive father claiming restraint when hitting his children because he could kill them too. — Benkei

Look at how the war was actually fought as opposed to self-declared or implied intentions. The US often wouldn't even take prisoners in the pacific. German POWs were massacred on several occasions as a retaliatory measure. Bombings were much more indiscriminate under Arthur "bomber" Harris and by the US against Japan. I won't even bring in the Russians because it would make my point too easy. Israel imports aid to the civilians of Gaza while the conflict is ongoing. Israel is leagues ahead of the conduct of the Allies. Also, it is not clear what Israel's intention is regarding Gaza. I think Israel would be unwise to annex it assuming they are victorious.

Even with my "idiotic" definition Hamas still fails. They show no restraint. Hamas kills and rapes until they are stopped by force. They are truly indiscriminate.

I was not calling for ethnic cleansing. My position was in response to Tzeentch's logic that the indigenous population always has the right to resist a foreign occupier. I argue that zionism is decolonization.

Palestinians aren't even remotely close to Axis powers of the WW2. — ssu

Hamas is comparable to the axis powers in terms of wickedness. More rapey than Nazi Germany though.

How do you think the US responds if 1200 of its civilians are killed and 200 captured by a group that is bent on its destruction? The casualty rate isn't terrible: about 1:2 or 1:3 terrorist killed to civilian ratio. Many conflicts around the globe are much bloodier but receive far less attention. No nation is placed under a microscope like Israel.

If you have good civil defense (bomb shelters), safety of civilians is important and the evacuation of civilians from the battlefield is possible, then a huge war can go without huge losses on civilians. — ssu

And Hamas did build bomb shelters... for themselves. They've received plenty of aid to build shelters. Or are you suggesting here that Israel just build bomb shelters for the palestinians? I'm not sure why you mentioned this idea or its relevance to the Israel/Gaza war.

And "such is war" is one of the most stupid reasoning ever I've heard. Believe me, there really are very different ways of fighting a war. — ssu

All of which involve killing the enemy as far as I'm aware. Since you mentioned WWII I'm sure you know the Allies did get their hands dirty and engaged in very questionable practices which today we'd call war crimes. Israel's conduct is well above the standards of the Allies in WWII. Israel exercises restraint. And we can all sit back and demand Israel exercises more restraint but it's basically babble to me as none of us are familiar with the reality on the ground. What other country would we demand such restraint from after 1200 of its people have been murdered? And 200 captured? By a terrorist group which vows to do so again and again?

Now we are reaching in Gaza the numbers that in the Iraqi war were killed in two years (24 000). — ssu

Did the Iraqi army wear uniforms? Did they build their command centers under hospitals? Did they routinely store weapons in houses and schools? Would they open fire behind women in wheelchairs? Hamas is a different type of enemy on a different type of terrain.

Hamas's ideology infects the Palestinian people and their schools raise them to be martyrs from childhood fearless of death. You ever see those kindergarten graduations in Gaza? Israel ought to destroy their enemy this time, not just wound it and come to some temporary peace (and you know it's temporary because Hamas strives endlessly for Israel's destruction). But it's a dangerous task because the more Israel is victorious, the more world opinion and anti-semitism will turn against them and the Jews. Israel may win militarily, but lose strategically.

... ergo a fundamentalist ethnonational delusion; thus, the many generations of secular Jews who were/are conscientious anti-Zionists. — 180 Proof

Delusion is too strong a word. It's no matter to me whether one believes in God. The Bible traces the inextricable connection the Jews have to Israel back to the bronze age. You got records of trips and burial sites from the patriarchs all across the land we know as Israel. According to Genesis the patriarchs were buried in a cave in Hebron.

I'm a non religious atheist, you're an Islamaphobe with extreme prejudice who wants to assert fallacy to make a point. See how non prejudice works? — Vaskane

Are we not allowed to question Islam here? I'd say you hold similar prejudices towards Judaism.

a morality of hate and resentment which drives one into ressentiment. It popularized this formula. — Vaskane

Judaism is not a morality of hate. I know this is a point that Nietzsche makes, and while there may be a grain of truth to his comments on the "priestly class" this categorization of Jewish morality is simply unfitting. If you want to know Jewish morality look up the 613 commandments -- how many of those instruct one to hate or resent?

Deleuze on the Oedipal familial structure really shines some lights on the ugliness of the origins of the Judaic tradition. — Vaskane

Thanks for the recommendation, but my reading trends towards actual biblical scholars when it comes to interpreting the bible. Might I recommend Nahum Sarna? Or Rashi? Gerhard von Rad? People who have devoted their entire lives to this.

The whole reason modern Zionism exists was to overcome the Judaic tradition. — Vaskane

Huh? Zionism is littered throughout the Torah with God promising the land to the Hebrews and describing Israel as a "land of milk and honey." Zionism is biblical.

implicates anti-Semitism starts with Judaism. — Vaskane

Sure, if we also say e.g. racism against blacks starts with blacks.

Really? :brow: — Tzeentch

If we're going with your statement that

a foreign occupier has no right to be there in the first place and are by definition in the wrong. — Tzeentch

then it's a question of who is the occupier/colonizer and Jewish kingdoms were there well before the arrival of Arab muslims. One cannot "occupy" the land to which one is indigenous to. Jews are indigenous to Israel; Islam spread from Mecca. Israeli Jews are in no sense foreign occupiers.

And Israel kills them — of all ages, in fact. Approaching the tens of thousands.

But at least they do it without hatred in their hearts. — Mikie

Just curious, do you think the US was justified in launching strikes against Afghanistan post 9/11? Or permitted to attack the Japanese mainland after Pearl Harbor?

Do you see any difference at all between a) a willing perpetrator of genocide who intentionally murders members of a certain group because they are members of that group and b) a soldier in the opposing army who, in attacking that group, accidentally kills civilians of that group.

Are these two people the same to you? How about their governments?

Yea, that's probably true. Christianity is the king of all death cults, though. Nobody does dark and gruesome like Christians. — frank

Yes, but at the center of Christianity you have Jesus while at the center of Islam you have Muhammad, a successful warlord with a child bride. Jesus sees an adultress about to be stoned and says "let he who is without sin casts the first stone." Muhammad when faced with the same situation says to stone the woman. These figures are not the same.

Well at least you've narrowed your condemnation from all Muslims down to Hamas. We're making progress. :up:

I am of course against Islamic fundamentalism but I cannot call these groups theologically incorrect -- nor has the Muslim world really spoke out against them. On the contrary, if martyrdom for the Islamic cause assures one a spot in heaven then groups like Hamas are good actors and have brought 20,000 muslim souls a place in paradise.

The 20,000 Gazans die martyrs and we should be cheering if we are honest muslims.

That there is a hell, or hades--a gruesome realm opposite a heaven--where anybody is tortured is enough to turn one off on all three Abrahamic religions. That a glorious heaven awaits those who suffer here is anodyne, but is likewise a turnoff. Suffering here is a dead certainty; a fluffy, cotton candy heaven, not so much, — BC

I like to watch NDEs, and some people recount going through a "life review" where the they feel the impact their presence had on others and its true consequences. If they caused others pain, that pain will come back to them. It's shame they feel, not physical torture. The good and the bad are both magnified and felt by the subject.

I'm not one to harp on the afterlife. It's left open in Judaism and there are various ideas but it's not a focus for us like it is in other religions. I read the Bible because it enriches my life. I do hope there is something after death because I'm a stickler for fairness and I like the idea that the soul would be able to reflect on the life it just had and learn from it. I do not believe in eternal punishment as I don't believe a just God would allow it. In any case, if one studies religious literature, one sees that themes like the end times or heaven and hell appear later along the biblical timeline -- the bulk of the Hebrew Bible has other topics to cover.

And if it all just goes to black at the end, for everybody, does it really even matter who was right and who was wrong?

And Israeli’s killing 8000 children out of love and compassion.

As long as good invisible intentions are there, one can kill with impunity. — Mikie

Waging war on the Axis made the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of Axis children an inevitability. Much more than 8k. Such is war. The blood lies on the instigator.

Hamas uses 14-18 year olds as combatants. Hamas allows children as young as 14 to carry explosives.

You have a habit of generalizing. The Talmud is a dense complicated text that takes years of study (7 years being the rule of thumb) to gain proficiency with it. I am not a Talmudic expert, neither are you - we are both out of our depths here but the Talmud says that the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come. Rabbis will discuss every topic under the sun, just as Christian and Muslim religious authorities have debated similarly whether followers of other religions end up in hell. I see no reason for particular vitriol against the Jews. Nor is the Talmud the end of Jewish tradition.

You've shifted the emphasis to the Talmud because you know the Torah is not eschatological (in contrast to the Quran, which is claimed to be pure revelation from God and goes into deep detail about the afterlife and punishment.)

Orthodox Jews may believe in a world to come, but they are not "apocalyptists" -- there is no fast track to Heaven like a shahid in Islam. It also seems heaven in Islam is described carnally. The Orthodox Jew is focused on daily piousness, not "death for the sake of God" as it's highest aim as stated in the Hamas charter. Orthodox Judaism is not a death cult like Hamas or fundamentalist Islam.

Oppression is a monster-maker. Being full of rage is a natural part of the process. Keep that in mind when you're trying to understand Hamas. — frank

Yet even Jews in actual concentration camps (Auschwitz, not Gaza) didn't end up mass raping German women or committing atrocities because of their "rage." Murder is condemned in all religions and the Hamas murderer-rapists will be accountable to God. Hamas does it from hatred, sadism. They are bred to be sociopaths in a culture which glorifies death and revenge. The Palestinians deserve better.

It's present but I wouldn't say that it pervades. We're told not to place our focus on it (Pirkei Avot 1:3).

And of course there's a difference between conversations among ancient rabbis versus what is actually used for instruction to a congregation.

No, I need to go to synagogue today where I will surely hear my rabbi lecture about how to get to heaven and attain my 72 virgins. You know, because, the Hebrew Bible is just full of eschatology and certain knowledge of the afterlife. :roll: /s

Islam is more eschatological than Judaism. Do you agree or disagree?

Where is my error? I contend 1) that Islam, as reflected in the Quran and Hadiths, is more eschatological than Judaism and that 2) Arab Muslims have engaged in vast colonization. Both seem right to me.

I'd be happy to take up a debate on either subject.

And there's nothing foreign about Muslim extremism.

For the secular western mind - very foreign. Islam is more eschatological than Judaism. Eschatology is featured extensively in the Quran and the Hadiths unlike the Hebrew bible. Christ was heavily eschatological but that faded over time with Christianity.

I think every insurgency fought against a foreign occupation can be justified. That doesn't mean the insurgents are the 'good guys', but a foreign occupier has no right to be there in the first place and are by definition in the wrong. — Tzeentch

Do you support resistance "by any means necessary" i.e. the complete dismissal of any moral notions?

In any case, I agree that the oppressed is justified in fighting back (but certainly within limits!). The foreign occupier has no right to the land.

So I guess we should send the Palestinians back to Saudi Arabia or whichever surrounding Arabic nation they came from. The hardline Islamic rule of Hamas and the main religion of the Palestinians doesn't arrive in the region until the 7th century. Jews were there over a millennium earlier.

Arab Muslims are far better colonizers than Jews will ever be. They are such good colonizers that the Western world takes it for granted that they must be the original inhabitants of the huge swaths of land they've conquered. The Islamic fundamentalism of Hamas is difficult for the West to wrap its mind around because the mentality is so foreign to us but it's encapsulated in the original 1988 Hamas charter: "Jihad is its path and *death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes."*

Maybe we're the ones in the wrong. What's this brief life on Earth compared with the eternal bliss of the one true Creator, Allah? Live for death, not for life.

Fair enough, but this article is a bit dated. To the best of my knowledge much of the fighting today is back to WWI style trenches away from civilians and it is a damn good thing that Russia is losing given what they did in places like Bucha.

Yes, in the Srebrenica massacre prisoners were being summarily executed; this is something we've seen hamas do, but not the IDF. We also saw the russians engage in executions of prisoners, including civilian prisoners. even though the ukrainian civilian death toll is comparable low, russia's tactics make its intentions appear plausibly genocidal.

The IDF is not intentionally massacring civilians. Hamas says 20,000 dead, but this does not distinguish between civilians and militants. Israel says 2:1 civilian to terrorist ratio have died. The IDF could make that ratio a lot higher if it wanted but it has made steps to reduce casualties.

Hamas fires its weapons from schools and hospitals; Ukraine does not use such tactics. Hamas enmeshes itself in the civilian population without a uniform while Ukraine does not.

Where are you getting your news? Tik tok? Lies.

Again, no. Hamas is completely fine with Palestinian civilians dying and this in no way "pressures" them. Hamas has forbid people from leaving zones where Israel said it would bomb. It has not allowed them to leave buildings that were to be bombed. You've got it backwards here.

That's not necessarily true. — Mikie

Practically, it is. It was the case in WWII and it is the case now in Gaza. If military infrastructure is struck, some number of civilians will die. Do we know the janitor's work schedule so we can schedule our bombings on his off hours? Targeting precision is not perfect. No one can control the direction of shrapnel or debris. Bombing campaigns are a matter of how many die.

The bar has to be higher. And what disturbs me here is when I get the impression from some that it's not. — Baden

I just don't know what a humane ratio would be of terrorist KIA vs innocents. Is 2:1 ok? What if it's really 3:1 or 4:1? Or what are we to make if some of those civilians are willingly providing support to hamas but not directly taking part in hostilities? the picture is incredibly complicated and we will never know it perfectly. how precise are the armaments israel is working with? how does their tech compare with e.g. the us or uk?

He was an earnest, polite, and respectful guy looking for a better life and that is my base presumption of who people in Israel and Gaza — Baden

I'm an American Jew. A decade ago I stayed with my dad's cousin in Israel, a hardcore Zionist, and easily the most racist, disgusting person I have ever met. I am under no delusions about israeli racism. I am not nearly as racist as them but I would still describe myself as suspicious of arab muslims. I grew up during the second intifata. I quite clearly remember going to hebrew school and reading articles of how palestinian militants would go into restaurants, bars, or buses full of civilians and blow themselves up during peak hours. They'd also lace their explosives with poison or feces so that those who did get hit would suffer. It would sometimes be women or children who did this. It was a level of hatred that left me astounded at the time and that astonishment has never left me. The absolute disregard that that society shows for human life was made prevalent to me very early. War and conflict degrade people, especially over such an extended period.

If the line is really literally nil for you and you also support eliminating the military then you would be saying you support elimintaing 1.5 million people — Baden

Of course there is a meaningful difference between civilian and militant; innocent and guilty. I wish to make that clear. However, on the ground if Israel is operating in an area where they've told, e.g. all males to evacuate and is known to be a Hamas stronghold then virtually all military-aged males are suspect and will likely be rounded up and interrogated. Hamas's policy of not using uniforms and luring IDF soldiers into traps with the sounds of crying babies endangers the entire Palestinian population.

I heard another disheartening statistic lately. According to one poll, 75% of the palestinian population supported the 10/7 attacks. I am now sympathetic to the view that the society now needs to be fundamentally restructured.

There's a difference, for example, between a targeted missile strike on an apartment that kills an enemy militant and also an innocent civilian from the apartment next door and simply bombing the apartment block and killing 100 innocent civilians and the militant. — Baden

Oh absolutely, proportionality is certainly a legitimate concern. But we also need to be honest that neither of us are in the IDF operations room and have a clear idea of Israel's proportionality policy. We just don't know the exact terrorist to civilian death ratio. Israel claims a 2:1 ratio but that truth may very well be stretched. We'll never know.

But I can tell you that Israel could certainly be more brutal than it's being now. It sends its young soldiers to die to reduce the number of palestinian casualties.

Yes, I do support the use of air power during WWII by the allies. I was making a point to Mikie's logic and extrapolating.

I agree with your analysis. And I'm sure you know by now that in Gaza the line between civilian and military is essentially nil. Hamas does not wear uniforms. Their deaths are counted among the civilian deaths. They use schools and hospitals to store and fire weaponry.

Question: would you think that bombing New York, Boston and Washington DC with few of such bombers would have made a real difference? — ssu

It would have strengthened our resolve. Just as the country rallied together after Pearl Harbor. Henry Kissinger argued in "Diplomacy" that even after Pearl Harbor Hitler declaring war on the US was one of his big mistakes. He says war with Germany was not inevitable after that -- only war with Japan was.

By all means use air power. Just don't use air power to kill innocent women or children. German, Japanese, or otherwise. — Mikie

If a bombing campaign is to be undertaken, civilians will die. It is just a matter of how many. Our militaries do not have the ability to save all innocents.

Innocent people shouldn't be killed, but they will be. Regardless of method. Some methods result in more civilian deaths than others, but none result in zero.

Superior Western intellects are truly on display here, demonstrating just how superior they really are as they find ways to justify the killing of thousands of babies. To wonder why the rest of the world might not agree with this value judgement… — Mikie

But Mikie, what of the thousands of German and Japanese children who died in WWII bombing campaigns? A horrible crime, right? Clearly the allies should have never used air power. I say, if even one poor, innocent German or Japanese child died by allied weapons it would turn us into monsters. Best to be pacifists and let the Germans have their way. I'm no child killer.

As sanctioned by whom? God? Or have you given yourselves license to do the sanctioning as well? — hypericin

In the case of Amalek I could not tell you whether it is God or Samuel, but from memory in I or II Kings members of the tribe of Benjamin gang rape and murder a woman and when the other tribes demand justice the tribe of Benjamin refuses setting off a bloody civil war. Sometimes you just gotta root out the rottenness.


edit: book of judges, not kings.

Even by the crudest biblical eye for an eye standard, Israel has taken seven or eight. — hypericin

That pertains to individuals within a society; the punishment must fit the crime. When it comes to a different people, e.g. Amalek, large scale destruction is on the table.

Yoni Saadon, one of the witnesses, recounts in the Times: "I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her. She was screaming, 'Stop it - already I'm going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me!' When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head. I pulled her body over me and smeared her blood on me so it would look as if I was dead too. I will never forget her face. Every night I wake to it and apologise to her, saying 'I'm sorry.'"

The girl was Shani Louk.

But Western culture is founded on Greek and Roman culture. It's difficult to argue anything else. Especially after the Renaissance, this heritage was found universally even in parts of Europe that never were part of the Roman Empire. And Christianity blended in perfectly to the Roman Empire, both in the West and also in the East, actually. The last remnant of the Roman Empire might well be the Pope, even if the ecumenical patriach of Constantinople is also still around. — ssu

Several historians have argued that Christianity played a large role in bringing down the Roman Empire through fostering a nobility/aristocracy class of wide-eyed mystics. Jesus and the Jews are both enemies of the Romans, but imho Jesus/Christianity is more effective at bringing down the Empire than any Jewish military revolt. I would say western culture comes down some mix of Enlightenment ideas with religious Judeo-Christian ones. But yes I understand how the Romans used Christianity for their own means. IMHO as best as they tried to control it, Christianity ultimately led to their downfall as their value system (the one which helped with their rise and success) was replaced with another. The Empire couldn't stomach Jesus. :rofl:

You need to leave 1948 and enter 2023. Orde Wingate is no longer with us and hasn't been for quite some time. Once this war is over, Palestinian children will need to be raised and educated in a way that encourages peaceful coexistence and cooperation with their neighbor, Israel. It is their only hope.

Or we could teach the new generation of palestinians how Israel is illegitimate and a criminal state and how Orde Wingate killed Arabs in the 40s and how everything is suffering and oppression.

They chose their neighbors and they chose to steal from them. — Vaskane

edit: not wasting my time with this one.

In 1948 the Arab states did not accept Israel as a state. Thankfully, in 2023 quite a few have come to accept it and therefore we have peace. Once the Palestinian governing authorities/society accepts Israel's acceptance that'll be a huge step forward. Look forward, not back. Societies that are caught up with historical grievances look back, not forward.

I never said that. Are you really going back to 1948? Jews have been forced from their homes across the nearly the entirety of the Arab world yet you don't see revenge attacks.

Vaskane, what about when the Babylonians sacked Judea in 586 BC? When are the Jews gonna stick it back to the people of Iraq?

I reject analogies that liken countries to individuals. Countries are not individual moral agents that bear individual moral responsibility. One does not "get back" at this "person" by killing its civilians.

but as far as I'm concerned every illegal settler — Benkei

A Jewish baby born in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv is an "illegal settler" according to Hamas (and unfortunately a significant portion of the Palestinian population). I recommend the Ami Horowitz interview where he interviews a Hamas leader and asks this question directly.

Do you believe Israel has a right to retaliate from the attack?