A step back: do you agree Israel commits war crimes, is illegally occupying land, commits human rights violations or not? You can agree with the facts and not condemn Israel for it because of loyalty, the idea of necessity etc. and I'd disagree but I can find some consistency in it.

There's no Palestine so no I don't condemn them and in any case, I'm not asking for a blanket condemnation either. I condemn specific behaviour. I condemn Hamas for their last attack. I don't condemn them for wanting to free Palestinians from Israeli occupation - which is a just cause and allows for violent resistance. I don't agree with the repeated claims Hamas still pursues the destruction of Israel and instead that they had a clear change in purpose in 2017.

I also think condemnation doesn't mean parties shouldn't be talking to each other. Exactly the other way around. I think admitting to the crimes committed on both sides is necessary for any reconciliation.

Neither of us need to prove to the other we have the ethical standing to enter the debate by condemning X, Y, or Z. We have the right to hold contrasting views, even if we find our respective positions deeply offensive to each other. — Hanover

I don't agree with this. I think we fundamentally have shared moral intuitions and only in the basis of that is reconciliation possible. You cannot have peace without justice.

Then there's "woke" anti-Semitism which regards Israel as an amorphous oppressor/occupier and glosses over Israeli/Jewish victims. — BitconnectCarlos

You're confusing anti-zionist positions with anti-semitic positions. Israel is an oppressor and occupier of land that doesn't belong to it and continues to settle it. Meanwhile commiting gross crimes against humanity in its treatment of Palestinians under its occupation and Israeli Arabs. The current government even condones and supports settlers killing people in the West Bank and unilaterally "legitimises" illegal settlements as if has the authority to do so. That's established fact, nobody speaks about the occupied territories as if it belongs to Israel. How about an unequivocal comdemnation from you about those crimes?

That same government is killing thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and collectively punishes them for the terrorist attack by Hamas. The majority of victims are children and women. Israel is so tough killing so many unarmed civilians! Such manly men and courageous women. Or as we call them war criminals.

Or are you just going to "gloss over Palestinian victims"?

Before we can have a discussion on this, I need a clear condemnation from you of Israel's ongoing occupation, repeated war crimes, crimes against humanity and illegal settlements. You know, kind of how every discussion with a pro-Palestinian starts with "B-bb-but do you condemn Hamas?"

I'm not sure there's a specific one but this is one of my favourites setting out the case for a binational state while touching on many of the injustices the Palestinians have experienced. By Edward Said: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/10/magazine/the-one-state-solution.html

I stopped caring about your opinion on this subject a while ago I'm afraid. But nice way of quoting out of context I suppose.

I see you have problems reading so I'll just stop it here and not waste my time.

So the left has a dilemma, it can either support the oppressed Palestinians against the tyrannical Israeli colonizers while dispensing of any concern for the evils of antisemitism or the rights of women and LGBTQ's within Palestinian territory. Or, the left can support a western culture that actively defends the human rights of classically oppressed groups within its very own territory while disregarding its occupation of a place that has a clear record of oppressing its own people (particularly women and LGBTQ's). — Merkwurdichliebe

You're acting like an idiot pretending this is about lgbtq rights or antisemitism while people are starving due to war crimes by Israel. As if we cannot be against discrimination and oppression at the same time! Or against Israeli occupation and against anti-semitism at the same time! Wow! It's mind-boggling! :scream:

Even from generation to generation? What if the span of time is 2000 years rather than 200 years? I am a moral realist, but I am doubtful about the idea that Fred Jr. has an indisputable moral right to the land that was stolen from his family 200 years ago. — Leontiskos

Maybe not the land but possible compensation if we can discover who benefitted from it. I'm not entirely convinced private property is the right legal framework to begin with though, which complicates these matters. Plus I think at some point reparing past injury isn't about obligation but more about taking responsibility. EG. I'm not responsible for the sins of my forefathers (slavery) but I do think I and the wider Dutch society can take responsibility without necessarily proscribing how (reparations, investments, acknowledgement).

So given the centuries of persecution of Jews in Europe and ME, I do think we have a collective responsibility to give them that piece of land for sovereignty. It would've been more of a class act if we hadn't foisted a huge problem on others though. Maybe Luxembourg.

At the same time, I don't see how the Palestinian issue can be resolved without a right of return. There's no issues of proof or ambiguity as to who is profiting from their displacement. It's more a question where to return and under who's government. And in that respect Israel cannot have its cake and eat it too. Either it's one state with equal rights for all and therefore no specific Jewish character, or a viable two states solution. And there decades of illegal settlements has fragmented the borders to such an extent that the Palestinian part isn't viable without significant land swaps also compensating for the loss of arable land and resettlement of illegal colonists.

Whatever we want to say about Bob Jr's resistance, I do not think we can say it is immoral. — Leontiskos

Yes we can. Moral rights don't lapse. The reason legal claims expire, is because of economic reasons because the administrative burden and possibility of proof greatly reduce over time. This is why there's no legal argument in favour of equitable relief for descendants of slavery but there certainly is a moral one.

That doesn't mean Bob has no rights at all of course but to deny the claim in its entirety would be immoral.

:up:

Under the paradigm that Israel must be a Jewish state, your flavors are apartheid or ethnic cleansing and genocide. — Tzeentch

Hence, certain flavours of Zionism (as pursued by Likud for instance) are racist. It's also pretty cool how being "Jewish" was subverted to something like a nation-race. Jabotinsky, one of the founders of Likud, wrote that "Jewish national integrity relies on “racial purity", whereas Nordau asserted the need for an "exact anthropological, biological, economic, and intellectual statistic of the Jewish people." (source: wiki on Zionism).

Also: how nice it is a pansy leftist like me can finally agree on something with your conservative ass... :razz:

Japan's attack was not honourable because there was no just cause - it was naked aggression. At the same time the fire bombings of Japan and the nuclear bombs were clear war crimes as well because all of indiscriminately targeted civilians.

Second anti-natalism post here, stop it. It's not the place to parade your favourite horse.

A democracy that commits humanitarian and war crimes against part of their own citizens and a substantial part of people under their occupation. Being a democracy doesn't absolve them somehow.

Yep, it does create a cycle of violence. But the cycle continues precisely because both parties are left with no choice. You can't step in and say, "Break the cycle by allowing the other guy to hit you and get away with it!" That just ain't gonna work. — Pneumenon

But nobody is saying "let the other guy hit you", we're saying stop human rights abuses, stop the occupation and illegal settlement. That has nothing to do with a cycle but everything to do with ensuring Palestinians can live in human decency. I have no problem with a just and proportionate response against a terrorist attack but I don't see why in the West Bank, where there is no Hamas, there's still an occupation, settlers with support from the IDF feel free to kill Palestinians and other human rights abuses continue.

But this is false. Not every action taken against a justified cause is immoral, much less punishable — Leontiskos

By definition anyone resisting a just cause is acting unjustly. It's kind of like the following decision tree:



So we see here it's not the opponents cause that gives rise to a justification to use violence but it arises from how the opponent pursues that just cause.

There's some room for weighing what is and isn't proportional given the cause of course. The greater the good we're pursuing, the more intense violence we would likely accept. As an example, I think the moral intuition that we are allowed to use more violence to protect our lives then to protect our things, seems reasonably.

Maybe, just maybe, if the West stops interfering in all these countries enough stability will arise for them to actually make social progress? Just an idea. But even more simply, the fact that living conditions in some of these countries is horrible for some people due to discrimination isn't exactly a justification to treat all of them like shit, now is it? So there's no hypocrisy; it's entirely consistent. What's not consistent is not according human rights to people because they don't respect human rights. Not if we consider human rights something fundamental and inalienable.

surrendering to an oppressive regime is the same as an agressor surrendering in defeat? Or what point exactly are you trying to make? That Palestinians should just give up in the face of decades of injustice?

I think it's more about identification. Most posters here are from advanced western nations so we bomb. It's the Other that has to resort to terrorism and guerilla tactics.

He's just framing the question in such a way he can feel good about himself for continuing to support Israel by pretending it's a war and not an occupation, Israel doesn't commit targeted killings (it does) and that scenario 2 isn't in fact a decades long list of Israeli crimes against humanity (it is). As documented by Bt'selem, HRW and Amnesty.

Let's ignore all that and pretend it's just about the latest Hamas attack and one bombing run with "regrettable" collateral damage. Never mind Israel just switched of water, electricity and stopped food and medicine. I'm sure the elderly, disabled, sick and injured Palestinians got in their fine BMWs and drove to their vacation homes in Dubai just in time before their regular home was bombed. 5,000 dead and over 50% of buildings damaged. How many displaced?

There's indeed no moral equivalency. Hamas' violence is a drop in the ocean of Israeli aggression.

ETA: Reading through the responses, I see you are aware of the atrocities Hamas has done. You just don't care. Or you just don't care when they happen to Jews. — RogueAI

What part of some violence is acceptable and some isn't is so incredibly hard for you to grasp that you start making shit up about my position?

What could Hamas possibly have expected from this situation but that Israel would respond, taking advantage of its many military advantages, bringing death and misery to Hamas' subjects, destroying Hamas' supplies of weapons, and killing their fairly limited numbers of trained fighters? In what way might this help with furthering Palestinian aims? It seems the attack has given Israel a freer hand to persecute the people of Gaza than they have had in decades vis-á-vis international opinion and internal opinion. That Likud is actually being blamed for the disaster does play to Hamas' aims, but this seems like one of the hardest responses to the attack to predict beforehand. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians is wrong tout court, irrespective of what Israel's possible reaction could be. In fact, we already know even attacking soldiers often invites disproportionate responses from Israel. So that is a given even if, for instance, Hamas had only raided a military outpost in what is considered Palestine under the UN partition plan and killed every soldier. And given support of relevant foreign governments, even such a "clean" strike is not going to help Palestinian aims. But I don't think it follows they shouldn't do anything in such an event.

Any way, I nitpick, I appreciate your post and reasoned responses. It grounded me in the beginning when I had a very emotional response to the situation initially (knowing full well the amount of civilian deaths that were about to follow).

No. I don't need to repeat the attack by Hamas was unjustified ad nauseum for every internet rando that decides to jump in on the conversation midway. It's tedious.

Political, economic and military support.

I can't see a single state working at all. Israeli Jews don't want to be governed by Muslims (and I can't blame them), and Palestinian Muslims don't want to be governed by Jews (also can't blame them).

If Israel lets go of their fear of a neighbouring Palestinian state, and Palestinians accept not getting all of Palestine back, then a two state solution becomes possible, but I fear we're a long way away from that. — flannel jesus

But a two-state solution is denied through backing Israel, which considers a Palestinian state a no-go. Let alone the insane amount of colonizer settlements in what should be Palestine for it to be remotely viable as a sovereign state. There's only one way in the direction we're going and continue to go and that is the total removal of Palestinians from Palestine. A de facto, really fucking slow, ethnic cleansing.

So if that's not acceptable then the only solution is for the West to pressure Israel into the two-state solution, which it never does. Although it does look like younger generations are wizening up to the crap Israel has been up to in the past decades.

It was acceptable by some, unacceptable by others. What does “being acceptable” have to do with “justification”? Do you mean that all that is acceptable is justified and/or that all that is justified is acceptable? What if X find acceptable what Y doesn't find acceptable? — neomac

It's a really simple concept; people find things acceptable when they are done for just reasons.

The two-state or single state solution with Palestinians, Jews and others living together both work for me, whether that state is called Israel seems irrelevant.

Musings: It's clear Hamas' attack was barbaric and should be condemned. However, what level of oppression and colonisation are the Palestinians to accept until armed resistance becomes justified? I think we can agree that at some point violence to gain independence is justified. Historic examples include slave revolts. The US war for independence. The indo-china wars for independence. Indonesian's war against the Netherlands. History is replete with examples where violence to gain independence was acceptable. The point being that if the Palestinian cause for independence is justified, every action by Israel against that is already contaminated as something immoral. And if Israel may punish an immoral attack, then it's corollary would hold true in that the Palestinians may punish the perpetrator who caused their oppression and use some (not all!) violence. Or we conclude their cause is not justified and then I think the uncritical support of Israel is de facto proof that this really is the western position. Given that the West has basically decided it doesn't accept Palestinian independence, should we not abandon the two states solution as a viable road but instead insist on a single state in Palestine and who gets to live there?

I disagree. I see a very clear justification for armed resistance.

Nothing that Israel has done regarding land justifies that barbarity to people, sorry. That's what you are supporting, and it's sad. — schopenhauer1

Well, that's pretty strange. I've stated violence is permissible, gave an example of what sort and condemned the way Hamas goes about it and in the post indicated that "by any means" is problematic. What Israel does is exactly what colonisers did, including the horrible treatment of indigenous people. If history has taught us anything then violent resistance is acceptable. I really don't see why not, especially after your derogatory complaint about the lack of resistance of the Dutch during WWII. Your position is inconsistent with historically accepted practices.

I'm sorry, whatever ends you're going for, that's evil on the face of it. It's sad you support it. I am bracketing the issue to this. You can justifiably be against violence by the Israeli military, but if you are not against Palestinian violence due to this particular issue, then you are too far gone. As I said earlier: — schopenhauer1

What's evil about a Palestinian state and a right of return, exactly? Or do you have it in your head again this excludes an Israeli State?

And yes, I think violence against an oppressor is justified. Slaves were justified to revolt too.

At what point have I given the impression I don't think Israel can exist? Israeli's cause vis-a-vis its treatment of Palestinians; the oppression, the stealing of land, the administrative detentions etc. - these combined are simply an act of aggression against the Palestinian people. And there's no just cause to do so.

As I said. Learn to read. Under the Chapter: The position toward Occupation and political solutions (note the word "solutions", eh? It's a dead give away of the purpose of those paragraphs)

It starts out stating that the British gave away to the Jews what wasn't theirs, the UN gave away what wasn't theirs and all resolutions and measures thereafter are not recognised by them. And really, why should they accept a colonizer gives land away that wasn't theirs to begin with? Why should they accept the UN partitioning land that they believe was theirs because they lived there? So in their veiw all these methods of establishing the Israeli state should be rejected by the Palestinians. And in this view, there can be no legitimacy of the Israeli state. That's a perfectly sensible view on the matter. Both ethically and legally.

It then goes on to say that despite these facts, it would accept a two state solution along the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as it's capital.

Rejecting the Oslo Accords is totally sensible as well. It's ridiculous to write away rights of self-determination and self-governance indefinitely and have another State have far-reaching control on governance at the same time. That's not self-determination and by definition can never lead to an independent Palestinian State. That criticism is well established as well and not surprising. The Oslo-Accord has never been popular with a majority of the Palestinians.

It continues to set out that any settlement without a right to return will always be rejected.

Only then do we get a chapter on resistance. The only thing there to disagree with is their "by any means". But it's quite clear resistance and a complete free Palestine is only pursued if the political solution is not reached.

So if you don't want terrorist attacks you need a) a real Palestinian State and b) a right of return.

Not entirely sure outside of decimating Hamas and trying to minimize collateral damage. To call for no military response is absurd and a standard that we would hold no other nation to. — BitconnectCarlos

It would be absurd except for the context of decades of oppression and crimes by Israel that preceded it, that you conveniently leave out so you can pretend it's an isolated incident and Israel is just reacting to it. Hamas' attack was wrong but so is any Israeli reaction to it. No collateral damage is acceptable given that we already have several decades of collateral damage, oppression and occupation. Because the Israeli cause isn't just, every action following it, is contaminated by that unjust cause. You cannot act ethically right in that case. In the case of the Palestinians, their cause is just but Hamas pursued it via unjust means. So their actions are also unjust but they could, if they had used other means - for instance only attacking Israeli soldiers involved in the occupation - they would've been fully in their rights.

Your classification of what Hamas is, is neither here nor there. Their charter is not crazy. It's an easily understood document. Anyone who reads "Hamas wants to destroy Israel" in it, simply cannot read. So I'll post a link here so people can read it for themselves:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full

Yes it is an ethnostate surrounded by Muslim nations. Just as the Muslims govern in a special way that promotes Islamic ideals, Israel perpetuates Jewish life and Jewish ideals. Israel absolutely values the lives of its own citizens above those of surrounding nations, but this hardly unique to Israel. We should keep in mind that Judaism is not a race. It is an ethnicity and a religion. You may not like the idea of a state with a religious/ethnic character but this is hardly unique to Israel. — BitconnectCarlos

If you combine this with the "no other State west of the river" when you know there's millions of Palestinians living there, you are deliberately creating a huge problem though. Marrying Likud's program to the Basic Law does precisely that. The greatest threat to Israeli security is Israeli policy not the Palestinians. But it's unfathomable for right-wing nutcases to have such reflection apparently; it has to be the "Other" not "Us".

Edit: just for clarity, I"m not calling you a right-wing nutcase but mostly anything Likud and the similarly depraved.

A vague reference couched in absolutist terms of Jordan to Mediterranean all of a sudden means Hamas is for two states? — schopenhauer1

It's only vague if you have reading comprehension problems.

Also to help you with your dyslexia, I said quite clearly before:

I want the Palestinians to win their freedom and think violence is justified to that end but not how Hamas goes about it. — moi

You implied and explicitly said on many posts that Hamas has a legitimate form of how it conducts itself. You tried saying how it's charter is cuddly-wuddly for a two-state solution, — schopenhauer1

Again. You're not replying to the facts. You just don't like it that it's incontrovertibly true that Hamas has indicated a willingness to discuss a two-state solution along the 1967 borders. I linked to the text. If only Japan had taken the same position as you would when they had a nuclear bomb dropped on them! "We don't negotiate with war criminals and terrorists and because the US army dropped it, we will not speak with the US government!"

It's fucking dumb.

Or you beat the enemy so badly (e.g., Germany and Japan and the American South), they're so sick of war that they're ready for peace. — RogueAI

Sounds like a lovely idea. So total war against Israel is justified then? Because while Hamas might have committed a war crime, certainly we are in agreement that the continuous oppression, indiscriminate killing of civilians, administrative detention, illegal settlements - all aimed against a people- is just blatant aggression, that great crime from which every action that is derived from it is a war crime in itself?

You keep comparing Hamas to Nazis and Israel to the Allies but Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein thought it was certain elements in Israel that learned the most from the Nazis.

"Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine."

"Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model." — 1948 letter NYT

And who is the successor of Herut? It is Likud:

[Herut] had already been in coalition with the Liberals since 1965 as Gahal, with Herut as the senior partner. Herut remained the senior partner in the new grouping, which was given the name Likud, meaning "Consolidation", as it represented the consolidation of the Israeli right. It worked as a coalition under Herut's leadership until 1988, when the member parties merged into a single party under the Likud name. — wiki

EDIT: All that to say that I prefer my peace a bit less bloody, thank you.

That video was ok. I liked the "what's their excuse?" for the West Bank killings when Hamas isn't there best I guess.