Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Razgovory]

I don't much care about the lives of murderous settlers in the West Bank.  They love to attack and kill civilian Palestinians, it's of no concern to me when Palestinians retaliate.  All they have to do is learn to live in peace and stop shooting at civilians.  A life is a life, contrary to what you and Raz imply.

You are talking about 700,000 people...

[Josquius]

I apologise for using one of your trigger words to describe Israels poorly targeted mass bombing campaign that has levelled city blocks and caused vast numbers of civilian deaths, and sowed fear and helplessness amongst others.

Let's be clear on what you did--you claimed a respected Western media outlet had labeled the IDF's campaign as a terrorist act, which it had not. When called on it you fell to the defense of pretending words have no meaning and when caught in a blatant untruth, it "doesn't matter." You lied about the stance of the BBC to promote your own preferred, frankly hateful, anti-Israel narrative. Then you lashed out and said it was a "trigger word" as if that insulates you from criticism for making the false claim.

I made no such claim. Such a predictable lie from you.

You just can't accept that people are capable of using their eyes and making judgements off their own back. Clearly if somebody is saying something bad about Israel its because an obscure nasty useful idiot lefty corner of the internet told them to say that.
That I am getting the bulk of my news about this situation from that famed bastion of the radical left the BBC and still came to the conclusion Israel aren't exactly on their best behaviour?
It just doesn't compute in your black and white world view.
I know what you want to say. I'm an anti-semite right?
'Hateful anti-Israel narrative'. Yeah. Totally. Bombing civilians is bad- that's a hateful thing to say!

Josq's position feels fairly representative of what I'm seeing from the "online" British, e.g. reddit (which skews very left): any nuance that doesn't condemn Israel = supporting all the worst things Israel has ever done or that anyone in Israel has ever suggested doing. Ignoring or minimizing all elements of Hamas evil. Ignoring any extremism (even when blatant) behind anti-Israeli protests etc. Bog standard left wing asshat which seems common in Britain now.

LOL!
Such amazing projection here. Positively Trumpian.
You are the one taking a stance that any narrative that doesn't condemn the Palestinians and defend whatever the Israelis are doing = supporting all the worst things the Palestinians have ever done, supporting Islamic extremism overall.
Bog standard right wing asshat which seems common in the west now.

[Josquius]

What's also striking, in addition to all the other striking things already mentioned, is the dehumanizing bigotry of low expectations.  Just like you can't be mad at lions for killing the cubs of the female they want to fuck, because that's what lions do, you can't expect some people to abstain from putting babies in the oven if they get a chance.  That's just what they do.  Now, Israelis, those cunts, they are to be held to human standards of behavior.

We're speaking from a western point of view thus putting ourselves in Israel's shoes.  Israel are our point-of-view characters in the Levant, they are the ones whose thinking and behaviour we think are the same as ours (often with key oversights where Israel is uniquely weird, often for the worse). Its natural we empathise more with their situation.

As to dehumanising the killers and seeing them as just a force of nature....This is how fighting crime on a macro level works.
A Hamas terrorist who put babies in an oven* is a horrible criminal scum bag who needs the book slammed into his face. You won't find many people short of the absolute extremes who thinks this is remotely OK.  Find that guy, put him on trial, hang him by the neck until dead... The only quibbles would be are you sure you got the right guy and general arguments against the death penalty overall.
However this is a given. Obviously in our societies what he did is shitting all over what is moral and legal. We know he's terrible and did a very very bad thing.

But this is all neglecting the key problem in favour of mutual masturbation on how awful this was. The key question is- how do we stop this happening again?  How and why did this guy become so absolutely fucked up in the head that he would do such a thing? Can we stop more people in the future from going down the same path?
The Israelis are the ones with the bulk of the power over Gaza.  Creating a situation that breeds more or less killers is something that they can take action to nudge the way they want.
Given as mentioned they are the side whose shoes we naturally put ourselves in and the side that is more open to nudging from abroad (see apartheid South Africa) and the side with the most agency... It makes sense to look at the issue from their point of view and what they can do to discourage extremism.

* Incidentally curious you guys keep mentioning this one crime. <half a dozen murdered kids can make irrelevant the thousands Israel have killed because the manner of the killings was nasty enough? Clearly shows emotion is being pushed over logic.

Yeah.... I'm really coming around to the fuck Israel point of view.
There remain cunts on both sides. But on the Israeli supporting side the genocidal views seem to be increasingly the plurality.
Combined with the footage coming out this does not engender sympathy for the side with all the power.

What is the fuck Israel point of view? What does this mean?

There remain cunts on both sides but...but what exactly? You want one group of cunts to win a major victory just because they currently have less power? That seems insane. But maybe you can explain your position more thoroughly.

Maybe I missed a hyphen. The Fuck-Israel point of view. Those I mentioned in that post who are really invested in this issue and jump down the throats of those trying to stay neutral if they say anything that defends Israel.

I support civilians not being slaughtered.
You think this gives Hamas a win? Then give Hamas that win. Its a meaningless victory. Personally I think proving themselves better people would serve the Israelis better but hey-ho.

Bombing the shit out of civilian areas is a pretty crap way to tackle a terrorist group. This is outside of my area of expertise so I couldn't begin to guess at a workable solution.  Something more hearts and minds based would seem smarter, give an actual viable alternative to the people of Gaza. Pure handwavium guess work, there's more informed minds than mine should be working on this.
What I can say for sure is that the solution isn't doing the same thing time and again in the hope that this time maybe the bombs will end terrorism and not slaughter thousands of innocent civilians, in the process providing the conditions for many more to be the terrorists of the future.

Josq's position feels fairly representative of what I'm seeing from the "online" British, e.g. reddit (which skews very left): any nuance that doesn't condemn Israel = supporting all the worst things Israel has ever done or that anyone in Israel has ever suggested doing. Ignoring or minimizing all elements of Hamas evil. Ignoring any extremism (even when blatant) behind anti-Israeli protests etc. Bog standard left wing asshat which seems common in Britain now.

Ahh, reddit, explains a lot. The only credible place there right now is /ncd

Hamas-huggers have even taken over the joke reddits...

Complete side-bar but you might want to check reddit again.
I stopped posting even a little there some time ago as the moderation of some major subs has shifted sharply to the right- perhaps born out of reddit's business fuckery chasing away the more balanced folks with time to spare.

[Threviel]

Might I ask you two questions?

Do you think that Israel, the state of Israel that is, is willfully targeting civilians in order to kill civilians?

Do you think that Gaza, the government of Gaza that is, is willfully targeting civilians in order to kill civilians?

[Josephus]

So, according to this Israel has a "concept paper" that involves transferring Palestinians to Egypt with the idea of them eventually going to a third destination like Canada.

1. Did they check with Canada? Not sure now's the right political climate for that.
2. Surely that's illegal.

[Grey Fox]

Did they uncover the British plans from the 1910s?

[OttoVonBismarck]

But its conclusions deepened long-standing Egyptian fears that Israel wants to make Gaza into Egypt's problem, and revived for Palestinians memories of their greatest trauma -- the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of people who fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.

I love how this is always phrased as some sort of "unique trauma." Meanwhile large ethnic population transfers were all but bog common throughout Europe in that era. Look at a map of % of Greek / Pontic Greek population in various districts in Anatolia before and after 1920-22. Or look at the % of German population in various countries and locations throughout Eastern Europe prior to 1945. Or Jewish population in various districts throughout the Muslim world.

For some reason, and I think we all know what that reason is, only one of these groups has been martyred for all time over it.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I made no such claim. Such a predictable lie from you.

You literally said "terror bombing" came from the BBC, your lying has reached a pretty tedious level at this point.

[viper37]

I don't much care about the lives of murderous settlers in the West Bank.  They love to attack and kill civilian Palestinians, it's of no concern to me when Palestinians retaliate.  All they have to do is learn to live in peace and stop shooting at civilians.  A life is a life, contrary to what you and Raz imply.

You are talking about 700,000 people...

And you don't care about how many Palestinians... ?

[Threviel]

But its conclusions deepened long-standing Egyptian fears that Israel wants to make Gaza into Egypt's problem, and revived for Palestinians memories of their greatest trauma -- the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of people who fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.

I love how this is always phrased as some sort of "unique trauma." Meanwhile large ethnic population transfers were all but bog common throughout Europe in that era. Look at a map of % of Greek / Pontic Greek population in various districts in Anatolia before and after 1920-22. Or look at the % of German population in various countries and locations throughout Eastern Europe prior to 1945. Or Jewish population in various districts throughout the Muslim world.

For some reason, and I think we all know what that reason is, only one of these groups has been martyred for all time over it.

Or the Jews all over the Middle East that were forced to re-locate to Israel, or at least out of whatever Arab state they lived in since 79 AD.

[viper37]

I think they're on the same levels.  Both want to exterminate each other.  Unless you can somehow convince me the far right does not want the Palestinian's extermination?  You might have a better chance at convincing me the Nazis were the good guys.

I don't think being openly unwilling to be convinced is as strong of an argument as you think it is.  It's definitely a revealing argument, though, especially the manner in which it is stated.

Look, when an Israeli defense Minister says an IDF soldier who shot an unarmed, non threatening Palestinian should not investigated but should be congratulated, I think it's pretty telling, don't you think?  I posted the quote before.  He thought the man who filmed it should be sanctioned, but the sniper should received a medal.

In any Western army, such a crime would have been investigated, and the soldier would have been tried. Only Trump would have lauded his effort.

That some people here would defend this kind of behavior is telling of a certain mindframe.  I was supposed to be anti-muslim, now I'm also a Jew-hater, so why not?   I guess I'll join CdM in the club of I hate everyone?

For the record, once more, I only hate religious extremists.  Christians, Jews or Muslims, it does not make any difference to me.

[Admiral Yi]

I made no such claim. Such a predictable lie from you.

You just can't accept that people are capable of using their eyes and making judgements off their own back. Clearly if somebody is saying something bad about Israel its because an obscure nasty useful idiot lefty corner of the internet told them to say that.
That I am getting the bulk of my news about this situation from that famed bastion of the radical left the BBC and still came to the conclusion Israel aren't exactly on their best behaviour?
It just doesn't compute in your black and white world view.
I know what you want to say. I'm an anti-semite right?
'Hateful anti-Israel narrative'. Yeah. Totally. Bombing civilians is bad- that's a hateful thing to say!

Part of the Hamas raid was the use of drones dropping explosives to disable the sensors on which the automated Israeli defense posts along the border rely to operate.  I don't know if these posts are manned or fully automated.  If someone were to describe these attacks as "another Hiroshima" would you defend their statements the same way your are defending yours?  After all, that would just be another example of "oh we're having that argument," the one you don't care about.

The point you seem to be incapable of fathoming is that in addition to the moral aspect of the bombing of Gaza there is an empirical aspect as well.  I personally, and I like to think most people here as well, think that Israel has a right to self defense, which includes retaliation and/or the elimination of the enemy threat.  I also think acts which go beyond this to pure cruelty, the purposeful killing of innocent babies, should not be done by a civilized people in this day and age, but that in the process of killing Hamas innocent people will suffer. 

You're free to hold the position that the number of acceptable Palestinian casualties is zero.  But please be honest about it.  Please don't misreport information as a backdoor to arguing this position.  That would make what you're doing either a con--you're trying to trick us into supporting your position--or a demonstration of your ignorance of the meaning of terror bombing.

I think when large numbers of posters with divergent views and nothing else in common are taking exception to what you said, that might be a good sign for you to reassess your position.

[Grey Fox]

For the record, once more, I only hate religious extremists.  Christians, Jews or Muslims, it does not make any difference to me.

That's the real enemy but the Anglosphere has gone soft against those people.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think they're on the same levels.  Both want to exterminate each other.  Unless you can somehow convince me the far right does not want the Palestinian's extermination?  You might have a better chance at convincing me the Nazis were the good guys.

I don't think being openly unwilling to be convinced is as strong of an argument as you think it is.  It's definitely a revealing argument, though, especially the manner in which it is stated.

Look, when an Israeli defense Minister says an IDF soldier who shot an unarmed, non threatening Palestinian should not investigated but should be congratulated, I think it's pretty telling, don't you think?  I posted the quote before.  He thought the man who filmed it should be sanctioned, but the sniper should received a medal.

In any Western army, such a crime would have been investigated, and the soldier would have been tried. Only Trump would have lauded his effort.

That some people here would defend this kind of behavior is telling of a certain mindframe.  I was supposed to be anti-muslim, now I'm also a Jew-hater, so why not?   I guess I'll join CdM in the club of I hate everyone?

For the record, once more, I only hate religious extremists.  Christians, Jews or Muslims, it does not make any difference to me.

Last I checked Israel actually does investigate incidents like that. Politicians frequently say shitty things. Lots of American politicians have said bellicose things out of sync with international law. What is more important is does the U.S. military follow the law, and largely it does. Same for the IDF.

[viper37]

I hate Muslims, not Arabs. There is a big difference. It is wrong to hate people for who they are innately (Arabs being a linguistic / quasi-ethnic group.) Hating people for believing and promoting evil ideas is not wrong. Islam is evil. Arabs are not. And I separate out Muslims from their religion to a degree—I hate Muslims for what they believe, but many Muslim individuals are capable of being mostly good people in day to day life.

Right.  You hate them for the religion they follow, so it's bigotry.

It's not much different from the guy who says he's not racist because he has Black friends.

Not all of them are terrorist sympathizers, just like not all Jews blindly follow Bibi.

No, I hate people who believe and support evil ideologies. I hate Nazis. If that makes me an anti-Nazi bigot. Sure, I'll sign up. It has no comparison to hating black people--which is racism, e.g. the hating of people based on their superficial race.

Do you believe all Christians support evil ideologies?  It seems to me Christianity is rooted in evil.  Massacres, pogroms, crusades, destruction, violence, it's all it's ever amounted to since the moment they achieve a modicum of power in the Roman Empire.  And there are lots of worrying trends coming from your country and from Eastern Europe.  Attempts to to violently overturn elections, supporting dictators, violent attacks against the LGBT communities, witch hunts in Africa, even the use of terror attacks when they don't have an army at their disposal.

I don't see how that's any better.  Thankfully, they are fewer in numbers.  And they are kept in check, by now, by an equally violent leftist mob.  What will it be once they have won and eradicated their opponents?  It won't be any better than Russia or Hungary.