Israel-Hamas War 2023

[OttoVonBismarck]

There's not actually an obligation to feed your enemy during war. Sieges are entirely legal, it is a legal, and rhetorical, fiction to suggest otherwise.

And children are not special in war--Hamas has many children who fight for it, you aren't immune from being worthy of killing just because you are under the legal age of majority in the West. There's 12 year olds in Gaza who are as much a soldier as anyone else in the war.

[Josquius]

The main difference I'd see is one of scale.
If Hamas started spreading indiscriminate death and destruction on the scale of the IDF then I'd be all for foreign intervention.
When within a few days of the IDF stopping their campaign there's been a few shootings.... Well it's just not equivalent is it.
The religion of the killers is irrelevant.

Give me a ball park figure on how many Palestinian have to die at Hamas hands before it becomes concerning.  If you want something well past the scale of the IDF you can look at Saudi Arabia in Yemen.  And now all the protesters for Gaza have nothing to do, I'm sure they'll move on to the atrocities in Yemen.  Your country and even CC's country can influence that.  So certainly everyone will march to stop those kids from being killed.  That is if they feel those kids are important.

My distaste for the Saudis long predates my coming off the fence against Israel.
But I'm sure you know my views better than me.

For people at large... It's true Palestine gets way more attention than equivalent shit elswhere.
Though the continued insinuation it's because of anti semitism -

More likely factors in my mind.

1: it's right next to Europe. Proximity makes things matter more.

2: Israel sort of presents as part of Europe, being in UEFA, Eurovision, etc... Being a western democracy latched onto the middle east, etc....
This applies from angles of both seeing more chance of getting change, there actually being easy actions European organisations can take, and seeing more responsibility from our side that one of ours is behaving so foul.

3: Palestine is under normal circumstances a urbanised middle income place where people live lives not very different at all to people in Greece or Italy for example. There's more relatability there.
Also arguably with some a racial element in them just looking more European.

4: Because Palestine is a richer and more urban place.... It also has more journalists and more cameras. There's more to see coming out of Palestine than Sudan or Yemen.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Gaza isn't very rich or urbanized FWIW. It's been reduced to a development level I like to refer to as "Islamist", since such places tend to have swathes of collapsed buildings, minimal economic activity, and sectarian gangs roaming around killing people.

[mongers]

That's the sound of one hand clapping.

[Josquius]

Gaza isn't very rich or urbanized FWIW. It's been reduced to a development level I like to refer to as "Islamist", since such places tend to have swathes of collapsed buildings, minimal economic activity, and sectarian gangs roaming around killing people.

Hence "under normal circumstances". Palestine's HDI ranking dropped 21 places due to the war. And that sounds overly optimistic to me, no doubt bolstered by life broadly going on as usual in parts of the West Bank (the Israeli crimes there not hitting the main economically active areas much).

On the other hand Yemen and Sudan are down in the bottom 20 poorest countries in the world.

You're comparing a nation that usually hovers mid-tableish, solidly middle income, to the poorest of the poor.

And just FYI Iran is pretty solidly in upper mid-table 75, Saudi 37, the UAE 15.... There's a lot to criticise ultra-conservative Muslim regimes for but the idea they instantly mean poverty isn't one of them.


edit- I was curious so I googled. 0.408 for just Gaza according to the UN.
That puts them just ahead of Somalia and South Sudan.

[Valmy]

The hypocrisy shit is so lame. It just tells me you have no actual substantial critique.

[grumbler]

There's not actually an obligation to feed your enemy during war. Sieges are entirely legal, it is a legal, and rhetorical, fiction to suggest otherwise.

And children are not special in war--Hamas has many children who fight for it, you aren't immune from being worthy of killing just because you are under the legal age of majority in the West. There's 12 year olds in Gaza who are as much a soldier as anyone else in the war.

You should probably read up on the Laws of Armed Conflict before showing your ignorance so belligerently. Siege can be lawful but they cannot stop the delivery of food and humanitarian assistance. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

The actual reason leftists care so much about Palestine is simple: they view Palestinians as their allies in violent opposition to Western society. That's really what it's always been about for that sort. The other sort of anti-Israel person is simply a Jew hater, and Europe is plum full of those.

If you want to understand any given "dumb leftist" international relations position, just read the commentaries of Noam Chomsky, they form what might be understood as the dumb lefty bible. The short of it is in any conflict, no matter how reprehensible, they get in bed with the side that they perceive is most anti-West.

They don't care about South Sudan because it isn't really attached to any version of a "struggle" against Western society, so it simply falls outside of their area of concern.

[OttoVonBismarck]

There's not actually an obligation to feed your enemy during war. Sieges are entirely legal, it is a legal, and rhetorical, fiction to suggest otherwise.

And children are not special in war--Hamas has many children who fight for it, you aren't immune from being worthy of killing just because you are under the legal age of majority in the West. There's 12 year olds in Gaza who are as much a soldier as anyone else in the war.

You should probably read up on the Laws of Armed Conflict before showing your ignorance so belligerently. Siege can be lawful but they cannot stop the delivery of food and humanitarian assistance. 

They can if it would be used by their military adversaries--the entire population of Gaza above the age of 12 are actually terror combatants, so it is entirely reasonable to conclude any aid would simply be diverted to belligerents.

[OttoVonBismarck]

New York anti-Israel activists will hold a vigil for former Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar today in the Bronx to mark the first anniversary of his death.

IDF forces killed Sinwar, the architect of the October 2023 assault, in Gaza a year ago, on October 16, 2024.

The Bronx Anti-War Coalition announces a vigil for Sinwar "and all martyrs in the struggle against Zionism and US-led western imperialism" in the South Bronx neighborhood.

The group tells attendees to bring candles, flowers and "photos of martyrs."

The event announcement is shared widely by anti-Israel activist groups in the city, including the anti-Israel campus coalition at Columbia University.

Earlier this year, New York activists held a funeral ceremony for Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Hezbollah terror group, whom the IDF assassinated last September.

People like this are 100% a justification for simply dispensing with constitutional rights. Trump is morally justified in using any powers of the Presidency to harm individuals like this, just as Lincoln had to depart from the constitution during the Civil War.

A society cannot survive with viruses like this in it.

[crazy canuck]

He has got to be trolling, right? Right?

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

He has got to be trolling, right? Right?

Considering the current US administration, I can't tell what's trolling any more.  Poe's Law has become a natural law.

[Grey Fox]

He has got to be trolling, right? Right?

Trolling is dead. He's just voicing the same dumb opinions that populate X nowadays.

[crazy canuck]

Good points, I think this is a good observation about this kind of conduct

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DP1OcVmjbSE/?igsh=bWg1MWRrb3J6cDJ4

[Razgovory]

The main difference I'd see is one of scale.
If Hamas started spreading indiscriminate death and destruction on the scale of the IDF then I'd be all for foreign intervention.
When within a few days of the IDF stopping their campaign there's been a few shootings.... Well it's just not equivalent is it.
The religion of the killers is irrelevant.

Give me a ball park figure on how many Palestinian have to die at Hamas hands before it becomes concerning.  If you want something well past the scale of the IDF you can look at Saudi Arabia in Yemen.  And now all the protesters for Gaza have nothing to do, I'm sure they'll move on to the atrocities in Yemen.  Your country and even CC's country can influence that.  So certainly everyone will march to stop those kids from being killed.  That is if they feel those kids are important.

My distaste for the Saudis long predates my coming off the fence against Israel.
But I'm sure you know my views better than me.

For people at large... It's true Palestine gets way more attention than equivalent shit elswhere.
Though the continued insinuation it's because of anti semitism -

More likely factors in my mind.

1: it's right next to Europe. Proximity makes things matter more.

2: Israel sort of presents as part of Europe, being in UEFA, Eurovision, etc... Being a western democracy latched onto the middle east, etc....
This applies from angles of both seeing more chance of getting change, there actually being easy actions European organisations can take, and seeing more responsibility from our side that one of ours is behaving so foul.

3: Palestine is under normal circumstances a urbanised middle income place where people live lives not very different at all to people in Greece or Italy for example. There's more relatability there.
Also arguably with some a racial element in them just looking more European.

4: Because Palestine is a richer and more urban place.... It also has more journalists and more cameras. There's more to see coming out of Palestine than Sudan or Yemen.

1: It's near important people

2: We we expect more from people who we consider "White".

3: Richer people are more important.

4: Nobody is stopping journalists from going to Yemen or Sudan, they don't go because people don't care that much.

It's boring and absurd to claim that people don't care for Jews.