Israel

[Neonmoon 38129]

25 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

When the smoke clears, you have the military juice to keep it or you don’t.

Correct

Case in point. Lots of stolen land in Europe 

 

[Satchel 6938]

16 hours ago, Dutchrudder said:

I jdon't understand how anyone can support a "2 state solution" to this never ending fued, when we know the newly created Palestinian state would never agree to recognize Israel as a sovereign nation with normalized relations. It's a large part of the reason why every other attempt has failed, and why it won't work this time either. Israel isn't going to "Free Palestine" when they know it would just be creating another Arab nation that wants to destroy it. That new nation would immediately become (or continue to be) a pawn of neighboring Arab states as the primary location for continuing their never ending proxy war on Israel. 

Nothing has changed in the last few decades, no matter how many people die on either side, you can't force Gaza to try a progressive democracy and use diplomacy to settle issues. And I can't really blame Israel for not wanting to create a more formidable enemy out of Gaza or the West Bank by granting them nation status. So I think this military operation will continue until they are satisfied, but it will "end" with most of Gaza occupied by the IDF, and it will become their Iraq-like quagmire. Their troops will be attacked periodically, some will die in IED blasts, and they will continue to use the never ending sporadic attacks as justification for their military presence forever and ever. 

 

I agree with those who believe the hope of any lasting peace in the region exists in a two state solution.

[Willfully Horn 8017]

1 hour ago, Gatorubet said:

It’s always fascinating when you have an intersection of religion and geography. As a practical matter, anyone’s Promised Land did not come about from God making it happen, but from your side killing all the people who were there before you - and/or killing enough until you drove the rest of them out.  The Old Testament is pretty clear that the children of Israel committed genocide on the people who were there to get their Promised Land.(God’s command that every living person in Canaan be put to death).  It’s also clear since the crusades that people who are not Jews have been declaring it their land, and killing the people who were living there at any given time, no matter what their religion.

So how much validity to we give a claim that this is my sacred God given land? I’m often reminded of the Lakota Sioux  and the Sacred Black Hills that the white man stole.  In a lot of ways that claim is a whole lot of bullshit. The land used to belong to the Cheyenne, before the Lakota were driven out of the great lakes area and pushed west. The Cheyenne also fucked up by introducing horses to the Lakota, who eventually became so numerous that they drove the Cheyenne out of the Black Hills.  IOW, the sacred Black Hills of the Sioux we’re only the sacred Black Hills from about 1775 on.  

That said, once you claim some places your sacred land, then it is hell to pay if somebody else comes along and drove you outta there the same way you drove out the previous inhabitants.  I have no idea where the hell I’m going with this, but I just had a thought bubble about the factor of the land belonging to someone because their religion said it does.

When the smoke clears, you have the military juice to keep it or you don’t. Whether you attribute your successful military operations that took it in the first place to God or not, well, that is another matter for another day’s discussion. 

The Comanche were relative newcomers, too. Certainly, the Comanche were not (yet) indigenous to Texas when Jack C Hays convinced the other Texas Rangers to mount up, at Plum Creek, and take the fight to Buffalo Hump’s raiding party.

Just saying.

 

 

 

 

[Gatorubet 30239]

The Comanche were relative newcomers, too. Certainly, the Comanche were not (yet) indigenous to Texas when Jack C Hays convinced the other Texas Rangers to mount up, at Plum Creek, and take the fight to Buffalo Hump’s raiding party.
Just saying.

The Comanche had been in Texas, 80 or 90 years before Plum Creek, but your point stands.   The fuckers lived in Colorado and New Mexico, and came south in the 1700s.    Why was the territory of Comancheria so large? Because those deadly fuckers killed anyone who disagreed with them. With the passage of 100 years it was now their ancestral homeland. 
Then Rangers like Hayes and soldiers like Col. Ranald McKenzie said it wasn’t. 

[wildcat09 29354]

 

Ben-Gvir is an all time piece of shit.

[Chopper 17235]

17 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Nope.
Don’t forget a very important fact: Bibi is an actual fucking criminal, and being PM is his plan to stay out of prison. He will not give up power willingly.

He'll be out soon or soonish. He's lost too much support among the Knesset. Israelis seem to have realized, albeit belatedly, that his negligent policies opened the door for Hamas' invasion. Maybe he'll try to pull a Trump and stay illegally as PM. I don't think he can get away with that and even as PM he's not in charge of fighting the war.

Also Brisket while I have your attention I enjoyed your pics and photos in the Estonia/Sweden/Finland thread. I purchased a flight yesterday into Krakow in late June, from which we'll make our way up to Tallinn. The wife has a meeting and conference to attend with the Mindvalley U folks. I was surprised there was only one Tallinn thread on this board but you covered it extremely well.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Chopper

[Satchel 6938]

In a just released statement, Bibi gives special thanks to Brandon for improving the terms of the pause and the fate of the hostages.

[wildcat09 29354]

22 minutes ago, Satchel said:

In a just released statement, Bibi gives special thanks to Brandon for improving the terms of the pause and the fate of the hostages.

Left unsaid is that if it hadn’t been for the Biden administration’s involvement, Netanyahu likely wouldn’t have negotiated for the release of any hostages at all.

[Satchel 6938]

18 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Left unsaid is that if it hadn’t been for the Biden administration’s involvement, Netanyahu likely wouldn’t have negotiated for the release of any hostages at all.

True. It’s times like these that require seasoned, skilled diplomats who know what they’re doing, even in the midst of seemingly intractable problems

[InkaUtexas 25947]

4 hours ago, Satchel said:

True. It’s times like these that require seasoned, skilled diplomats who know what they’re doing, even in the midst of seemingly intractable problems

The Embassy, who rarely gets credit, pulls off policy. Presidents and their cabinets just announce it. 

[bolverk 29680]

This is a really great read on the conflict and the failure of the Oslo Accords. It's an interview with 3 Israelis, 3 Palestinians, and 1 American about many of the issues and background. The link I'm providing is "gifted" instead of a copy/paste job because of the length and footnotes providing context.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/20/magazine/israel-gaza-oslo-accords.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AU0.oq9R.PBpkrIDkAAw5&smid=url-share

 

Here's the panel and their backgrounds:

Omar Dajani is a professor at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. From 1999 to 2001, he served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel, participating in the summits at Camp David and Taba. He currently sits on the board of A Land for All, an Israeli-Palestinian peace group.

Dana El Kurd is an assistant professor at the University of Richmond and author of ‘‘Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine.’’ She is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington D.C.

Efraim Inbar is president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and head of the program in strategy, diplomacy and security at Shalem College in Jerusalem. He was a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and the founding director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He is the author of ‘‘Rabin and Israel’s National Security,’’ published in 1999.

Daniel Kurtzer was the United States ambassador to Egypt from 1997 to 2001 and the ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005. He is a professor at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Avishai Margalit is a professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was the George Kennan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton from 2006 to 2011. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

Khalil Shikaki is a professor of political science, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah and a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. Since 1993, he has conducted more than 200 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, since 2000, dozens of joint polls among Palestinians and Israelis.

Limor Yehuda is a lecturer at the faculty of law at the Hebrew University and a research fellow at Haifa University and the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She is also the author of the recent book ‘‘Collective Equality: Democracy and Human Rights in Ethno-National Conflicts’’ and a founder of the Israeli-Palestinian peace group A Land for All.

Emily Bazelon, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, moderated the discussion.

[Welshy 907]

10 minutes ago, bolverk said:

This is a really great read on the conflict and the failure of the Oslo Accords. It's an interview with 3 Israelis, 3 Palestinians, and 1 American about many of the issues and background. The link I'm providing is "gifted" instead of a copy/paste job because of the length and footnotes providing context.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/20/magazine/israel-gaza-oslo-accords.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AU0.oq9R.PBpkrIDkAAw5&smid=url-share

 

Here's the panel and their backgrounds:

Omar Dajani is a professor at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. From 1999 to 2001, he served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel, participating in the summits at Camp David and Taba. He currently sits on the board of A Land for All, an Israeli-Palestinian peace group.

Dana El Kurd is an assistant professor at the University of Richmond and author of ‘‘Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine.’’ She is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington D.C.

Efraim Inbar is president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and head of the program in strategy, diplomacy and security at Shalem College in Jerusalem. He was a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and the founding director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He is the author of ‘‘Rabin and Israel’s National Security,’’ published in 1999.

Daniel Kurtzer was the United States ambassador to Egypt from 1997 to 2001 and the ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005. He is a professor at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Avishai Margalit is a professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was the George Kennan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton from 2006 to 2011. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

Khalil Shikaki is a professor of political science, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah and a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. Since 1993, he has conducted more than 200 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, since 2000, dozens of joint polls among Palestinians and Israelis.

Limor Yehuda is a lecturer at the faculty of law at the Hebrew University and a research fellow at Haifa University and the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She is also the author of the recent book ‘‘Collective Equality: Democracy and Human Rights in Ethno-National Conflicts’’ and a founder of the Israeli-Palestinian peace group A Land for All.

Emily Bazelon, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, moderated the discussion.

Fuck them. 

And fuck Israel. And fuck Palestine.

Take what you can. It's as it always was, and what it will ever be. If you can't hold it, fuck you. You, Israel, and your 400B in aid from the US and you can't protect your borders? Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you for not protecting yoreself. Fuck jewish legislators for bleeding the US for Israeli Kibbutz Nirvana. Fuck us all. But Mostly you. 

 

$400, 000, 000 Billion dollars in aid to Israel equals ≈ $1,142.8571M PER PERSON IN THE US.

That's a million dollars + for every US citizen alive (kids too), spent to subsidize israel. Not to mention our own resources, ships, inteligence and blood...seriously, fuck them. Fuck SA, Jordan, AE - All of them - all of them and their god-granted bullshit. 

The US is so wealthy it doesn't realize it, but they spend more money on Israel than it does on it's own Elderly. Seriously, fuck semites. Arabls. Aztecs. Whatever. NOT OUT PROBLEM. NOT OUR PROBLEM. Everyone wants the US to go away? GREAT. Egypt, you don't get 3B a year. Jordan, you don't get 2B a year. Turkey...hate us? No more 2B a year. SERIOUSLY, FUCK THESE PEOPLE. 

uck you, Christians, jews, and you too Islam. All of you. Fuck you. I don't give a shit about any of your god in the sky virgin redemption theories. Israel doesn't deserve our money and Palestine doesn't deserve our tears. Fuck your death by religion, both of you. 

[Welshy 907]

I'll quote myself and say the US spends well over 50 billion dollars a year in foreign aid. Fuck them. China can have its hemisphere...and fucking Iran and russia too. Good luck.

If Germany and GB don't care about Russian aggressions, fuck them. The hard truth is none of our enemies can hurt us. Our economy is bigger than all of theirs combined.

The US is not the world police. We're not the world's fall-guy. Or bad guy. Also fuck you if your country gets fucked and you happen to live in the US.

NOT OUR PROBLEM.

Move back and take a gun. Fight for Palestine. Or Mongolia. Israel...Carthaginian rights in north Africa. THE US DOESN'T OWE YOU SHIT. 

[Biff Tannen 45688]

[TexArcher 37774]

[David Dennison 18860]

[DDD Dad 14339]

[hobbes2702 13034]

[babysdaddy 2724]

whoa, must be serious if you used bolded green font.

[freyguy 4273]

11 hours ago, Welshy said:

Fuck them. 

And fuck Israel. And fuck Palestine.

Take what you can. It's as it always was, and what it will ever be. If you can't hold it, fuck you. You, Israel, and your 400B in aid from the US and you can't protect your borders? Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you for not protecting yoreself. Fuck jewish legislators for bleeding the US for Israeli Kibbutz Nirvana. Fuck us all. But Mostly you. 

 

$400, 000, 000 Billion dollars in aid to Israel equals ≈ $1,142.8571M PER PERSON IN THE US.

That's a million dollars + for every US citizen alive (kids too), spent to subsidize israel. Not to mention our own resources, ships, inteligence and blood...seriously, fuck them. Fuck SA, Jordan, AE - All of them - all of them and their god-granted bullshit. 

The US is so wealthy it doesn't realize it, but they spend more money on Israel than it does on it's own Elderly. Seriously, fuck semites. Arabls. Aztecs. Whatever. NOT OUT PROBLEM. NOT OUR PROBLEM. Everyone wants the US to go away? GREAT. Egypt, you don't get 3B a year. Jordan, you don't get 2B a year. Turkey...hate us? No more 2B a year. SERIOUSLY, FUCK THESE PEOPLE. 

uck you, Christians, jews, and you too Islam. All of you. Fuck you. I don't give a shit about any of your god in the sky virgin redemption theories. Israel doesn't deserve our money and Palestine doesn't deserve our tears. Fuck your death by religion, both of you. 

 

[Anastasis 23470]

2 hours ago, babysdaddy said:

whoa, must be serious if you used bolded green font.

What do you expect, he’s Irish. 

[mchookem 16336]

[hobbes2702 13034]

2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

What do you expect, he’s Irish. 

[Dutchrudder 11139]

On 11/19/2023 at 2:34 AM, InkaUtexas said:

Don't agree. things were changing. Turkey has always traded with Israel. They were working on a pipeline for the offshore project. Jordan was developing a desalinization project with Israel. Saudi Arabia was talking about normalizing relations. Shit, you have Israelis going to Dubai as both investors and tourists. October 7th changed all of that. 

I spent 7 years living in the Middle East. One team in the company I worked for was involved in some development projects in Israel. Mainly agriculture technology they were using in Africa. To get there they would travel to Turkey and then Tel Aviv. In Turkey their passports would not be stamped upon entry in Israel or Turkey.  Instead there would be a peace of paper stamped and inserted. Why? Because no one with an Israeli stamp could enter the UAE and we all lived there. Me with my Afghan visa? No problem. 

A two state solution could work. But it requires guarantees by both Egypt and Jordan. Israel has pretty good relations with them. Do no confuse Syria with Oman. Yemen with Jordan. 

You're talking about some of the more progressive countries though. Most in the region still hate Israel, and it has been that way since it was founded. Let's run down the list of countries: 

Egypt and Jordan have had decent relations with Israel and the US for a while. Turkey has always tried to straddle the line between gaining EU membership and Western acceptance, and maintaining its role in the Muslim Brotherhood. They have recognized Israel for a long time, so nothing new there. 

Qatar and UAE have good relationship with Western countries, they know where their money comes from, and they don't seem to worry about the backlash of diplomatic relations with Israel. I would imagine Kuwait could fall in that category too if given the right deal, but they prefer to align with other Arab states. 

Saudi is a bit like those in the sense that their economic prosperity is largely driven by the US and EU, however I can't make heads or tails of where their future lies. They are slated to join the BRICS on January 1st, and that does align them more with China/Russia and their cohorts. I think Trump's lack of response against Iran in 2019, after Iran sent drones into Saudi and bombed their oil fields, caused the Saudis to take a hard look at what they are going to do in the future and who they are going to align themselves with. If the US protection guarantee is no longer there, then they need a new army to protect them from the next Saddam, or avoid doing anything that would create war with Iran and other neighbors. Normalizing relations with Israel wouldn't really help them unless the US agrees to protect them from Iran, Houthis, etc. I don't know how serious it is that they considered joining the Abraham Accords, unless US protection guarantees were on the table. It would seem like an unforced error to sign it without huge concessions and protection from the US. If China and/or Russia wants to fill that role, then I guess we will have some difficult times ahead for US foreign policy. 

Morocco signed on to the Abraham Accords in order for the US and Israel to recognize their claim to Western Sahara. A move that nobody else in the UN recognizes, as it's considered occupied territory much like settlements in the West Bank.  That was a huge fuckup by Trump's State Department for no real benefit other than adding to the total number of countries in his deal. That's about the diplomatic equivalent of The Coalition of the Willing signing on a bunch of Pacific island nations.  Not much of a victory, and now how the hell do we counter any other claims of occupied land in the world when we recognize both of those?  Russia wants to keep newly occupied east Ukraine, well we let 2 other countries do it now so... uhhh... 🤷‍♂️ It also complicates the 2 state solution, as the new state(s) would require Israel giving up occupied territory. 

So who else is going to sign on to recognize Israel then? Who is going to maintain diplomatic relations and a ceasefire? How many are going to stop supporting terrorist groups as a proxy? Are any of these in the region a realistic option? 
Syria
Lebanon
Iran
Yemen
Oman
Iraq
Kuwait
Gaza/West Bank

Because if you can't get some of these countries on board (Iran, Syria and Yemen aren't happening), then you will continue to have war in Israel. Creating a state out of Gaza and the West Bank doesn't fix that. It doesn't stop rebel groups from launching rockets at Israel, and if anything, it just increases the ability of those terror groups to acquire weapons to kill more Israelis. The Houthis have been a conduit for Iranian terrorism in the region for over a decade now, Hamas is much the same but more limited due to Israel's control. If you remove the blockades and iron grip on the region, then the next missiles they launch won't be made from sewer pipes. So I understand why Israel wants to maintain control over them, I understand that it's a foreign occupation, and that it's an awful situation for everyone involved, but how else should Israel deal with it? Turn over control to the Palestinians and hope/pray they don't get significantly more powerful weapons?  Would you want Israel to make that agreement if you were a citizen living there?  

[pacman 7355]

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2B972_Magazine

 

[wildcat09 29354]

From that article:

Quote

According to the investigation, another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can “generate” targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a “mass assassination factory.”

According to the sources, the increasing use of AI-based systems like Habsora allows the army to carry out strikes on residential homes where a single Hamas member lives on a massive scale, even those who are junior Hamas operatives. Yet testimonies of Palestinians in Gaza suggest that since October 7, the army has also attacked many private residences where there was no known or apparent member of Hamas or any other militant group residing. Such strikes, sources confirmed to +972 and Local Call, can knowingly kill entire families in the process.

AI mass targeting people for bombing is horrifying.

[pacman 7355]

Absolutely, especially one likely embedded with high amounts of bias.

Israeli military, "What false positives? There is no such thing!"

[Neonmoon 38129]

20 minutes ago, pacman said:

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2B972_Magazine

 

This website has dozens of articles why Israel are monsters. I agree with a lot of them. 

Not one single fucking article about Hamas being monsters. Not one article about Palestinians in Gaza pleading for Hamas to leave Gaza or be punished for their actions.

In fact, right after Oct 7 they posted an article basically saying welcome to what is our daily existence. Yes attacks are civilians are war crimes, but what did you expect. 

https://www.972mag.com/gaza-attack-context-israelis/

 

[wildcat09 29354]

1 minute ago, Neonmoon said:

This website has dozens of articles why Israel are monsters. I agree with a lot of them. 

Not one single fucking article about Hamas being monsters. Not one article about Palestinians in Gaza pleading for Hamas to leave Gaza or be punished for their actions.

In fact, right after Oct 7 they posted an article basically saying welcome to what is our daily existence. Yes attacks are civilians are war crimes, but what did you expect. 

https://www.972mag.com/gaza-attack-context-israelis/

 

I think that's probably because it's a magazine by Jewish liberals speaking to a Jewish audience that already knows Hamas are monsters.

[Anastasis 23470]

That article is fucking nuts.

 

"Sorry Ahmed, see there is this thing called a receiver operating characteristic plot, and well, you know...."

 

On Oct. 22, the Israeli Air Force bombed the home of the Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq in the city of Deir al-Balah. Ahmed is a close friend and colleague of mine; four years ago, we founded a Hebrew Facebook page called “Across the Wall,” with the aim of bringing Palestinian voices from Gaza to the Israeli public.

The strike on Oct. 22 collapsed blocks of concrete onto Ahmed’s entire family, killing his father, brothers, sisters, and all of their children, including babies. Only his 12-year-old niece, Malak, survived and remained in a critical condition, her body covered in burns. A few days later, Malak died.

Twenty-one members of Ahmed’s family were killed in total, buried under their home. None of them were militants. The youngest was 2 years old; the oldest, his father, was 75. Ahmed, who is currently living in the UK, is now alone out of his entire family.

[956 Worldwide 34715]

4 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

From that article:

AI mass targeting people for bombing is horrifying.

One of the striking things about that article is that it does a deep dive into the differences scale, intensity, and tolerances for civilian causalities between Israeli strikes since October 7 and previous Israeli operations in Gaza— while not referencing any context for the motivations. The escalation ladder is real, folks, and you don’t climb up a rung without risking that the other side climbs up a few too. The scale of October 7 in proportional terms is far beyond what we saw on 9/11 and so Hamas finds themselves (and the civilians they swim among) in a pretty tough place on the asymmetric adversary ladder:

 

The AI thing is where modern warfare is going. It will cause the same discomfort we felt when we started launching Hellfires from Reno instead of from the cockpit of an F-18.  We may not want a revolution in military affairs, neither did cavalry officers in 1914, but revolutions sweep away all before them.  

[956 Worldwide 34715]

But why did they move up the escalation ladder to “crush?”

 

[956 Worldwide 34715]

Prediction: “From the River to the Sea” crowd will start the timeline at 7:03 and kvetch about how being asked to condemn Hamas is unfair or racist or some shit. 
 

 

[AnTiM 1666]

Let us know when anyone figures out how to negotiate with terrorists.

[txhorns 2409]

2 hours ago, AnTiM said:

Let us know when anyone figures out how to negotiate with terrorists.

Yeah especially the toddler terrorists holding their parents hostage over their fucking dinner.

[statsman 5471]

I am inclined to be pro-Israel. Reading accounts of Israeli atrocities is tough. I would like if someone could explain them away, or provide a plausible reason to deny them; it would make me feel better. Or maybe something else happens, and I can ignore them. 
 
But, you can’t deny or explain many of them. They are just really bad, even evil, things done by members of a group I have an affinity for. I have a saying- “the truth is not always your friend, but you can’t let it be your enemy”. 
 
I get why some Palestinian supporters want to deny some of the 10-7 atrocities, or blame them on the IDF. Same deal. 
 
As an American, I can come to terms with My Lai. (It helps that an American warrant officer, Hugh Thompson, stopped it, after so many innocent Vietnamese civilians were slaughtered. It would be even more shameful if Calley’s group “finished the job” and covered it up, and Americans were given an opportunity to deny it happened). Those were bad men, they needed to be punished, far worse than they were. We just have to live with that shame. 
 
Mahmudiyah was another example of shameful criminality, perpetrated by US soldiers. We did a better job of punishment; those assholes will never see the light of day, again. Again, denying and explaining is a stupid exercise. 
 
In these incidents, I think a helpful tool is to remember to blame people for what they do, and not who they are. Hamas terrorists/militants are committing horrible war crimes and they deserve punishment. Any IDF soldiers that commit war crimes should also be punished. (I don’t believe bombing civilian population centers where the enemy is harbored is a war crime; the war crime is hiding among innocent civilians). 
 
Palestinian civilians, no matter what views they may have, haven’t done anything. I see no reason to hate or punish them for Hamas’ crimes. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by statsman

[Willfully Horn 8017]

6 hours ago, statsman said:

I am inclined to be pro-Israel. Reading accounts of Israeli atrocities is tough. I would like if someone could explain them away, or provide a plausible reason to deny them; it would make me feel better. Or maybe something else happens, and I can ignore them. 
 
But, you can’t deny or explain many of them. They are just really bad, even evil, things done by members of a group I have an affinity for. I have a saying- “the truth is not always your friend, but you can’t let it be your enemy”. 
 
I get why some Palestinian supporters want to deny some of the 10-7 atrocities, or blame them on the IDF. Same deal. 
 
As an American, I can come to terms with My Lai. (It helps that an American warrant officer, Hugh Thompson, stopped it, after so many innocent Vietnamese civilians were slaughtered. It would be even more shameful if Calley’s group “finished the job” and covered it up, and Americans were given an opportunity to deny it happened). Those were bad men, they needed to be punished, far worse than they were. We just have to live with that shame. 
 
Mahmudiyah was another example of shameful criminality, perpetrated by US soldiers. We did a better job of punishment; those assholes will never see the light of day, again. Again, denying and explaining is a stupid exercise. 
 
In these incidents, I think a helpful tool is to remember to blame people for what they do, and not who they are. Hamas terrorists/militants are committing horrible war crimes and they deserve punishment. Any IDF soldiers that commit war crimes should also be punished. (I don’t believe bombing civilian population centers where the enemy is harbored is a war crime; the war crime is hiding among innocent civilians). 
 
Palestinian civilians, no matter what views they may have, haven’t done anything. I see no reason to hate or punish them for Hamas’ crimes. 

Well, if the stories you’ve read were posted by @Anastasis, and were authored by dci-Palestine, the following link casts suspicion on dci’s credibility. To be fair, this link might be fake news, and dci might be legit. Unfortunately, the legit sites that review news outlets haven’t spoke to dci-Palestine.

https://www.ngo-monitor.org/ngos/defence_for_children_international_palestine_section/

Edited to say that ngo-monitor has a mixed relationship with credibility. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Willfully Horn

[Anastasis 23470]

3 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Edited to say that ngo-monitor has a mixed relationship with credibility. 

That is certainly one way to say it. Another might be that NGOM "is not an objective watchdog: It is a partisan operation that suppresses its perceived ideological adversaries through the sophisticated use of McCarthyite techniques – blacklisting, guilt by association and selective filtering of facts" (Didi Remez). They basically try to shit on and undermine any group that attempts to report on human rights in the Occupied Territories, including groups like B'Tselem. 

[Willfully Horn 8017]

4 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

That is certainly one way to say it. Another might be that NGOM "is not an objective watchdog: It is a partisan operation that suppresses its perceived ideological adversaries through the sophisticated use of McCarthyite techniques – blacklisting, guilt by association and selective filtering of facts" (Didi Remez). They basically try to shit on and undermine any group that attempts to report on human rights in the Occupied Territories, including groups like B'Tselem. 

While I don’t doubt that, I still am unsure of how reliable dci-p is. They are a branch of a terrorist government, after all.

[atomheartbevo 89674]

12 hours ago, AnTiM said:

Let us know when anyone figures out how to negotiate with terrorists.

Or how well they think "Mass Assassination Factory" will be received as the name of a garage band.

[Hornius Emeritus 12462]

15 hours ago, AnTiM said:

Let us know when anyone figures out how to negotiate with terrorists.

Nobody can. It's just that who the terrorists are differs, depending wholly on whom you ask.

 

[David Dennison 18860]

1 hour ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

Nobody can. It's just that who the terrorists are differs, depending wholly on whom you ask.
 

[Hornius Emeritus 12462]

18 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

[statsman 5471]

9 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

Nobody can. It's just that who the terrorists are differs, depending wholly on whom you ask.

 

I may be going out on a limb, but I think the guys who grab a 14 year old girl, rape her by forcing her ankles up by her ears, and break her legs and pelvis by dropping all their weight on her in that position, and then put a bullet in her head after finishing,…those guys are terrorists. 
 
The guys that take an infant and put it, living, into an oven, turn on the heat and walk away? Those guys are terrorists. 

[hayden_horn 11362]

1 hour ago, statsman said:

I may be going out on a limb, but I think the guys who grab a 14 year old girl, rape her by forcing her ankles up by her ears, and break her legs and pelvis by dropping all their weight on her in that position, and then put a bullet in her head after finishing,…those guys are terrorists. 
 
The guys that take an infant and put it, living, into an oven, turn on the heat and walk away? Those guys are terrorists. 

I would say be careful with this logic. the idf and israel have done some rank shit. 

we all need a little lester freeman in our lives.

follow the arms and the terrorist acts and you will find terrorists and the terrorist leaders. follow the money, who knows where the fuck is going to take you. 

[956 Worldwide 34715]

There is zero equivalence between the IDF and Hamas/IJP.  The IDF has the capability and the current mandate to inflict violence on a larger scale. But don’t get twisted: for Hamas/IJP murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, and terror are not by-products, aberrations, or even means to an end. They are the end in and of themselves. 
 

This is why I posted up thread that the current trendy framework of viewing morality and ethics through a lens of “who has power” is a broken worldview. Sometimes, often even, the powerful are the more good, or least bad. 

[Gatorubet 30239]

15 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

There is zero equivalence between the IDF and Hamas/IJP.  The IDF has the capability and the current mandate to inflict violence on a larger scale. But don’t get twisted: for Hamas/IJP murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, and terror are not by-products, aberrations, or even means to an end. They are the end in and of themselves. 

Everybody who has read your posts here knows how deeply emotionally invested you are in these events.  And that is not meant as a slight.  But - to the family of innocent Palestinians killed by the IDF, they do not give a shit about the equivalent morality of the two different groups. It does not matter to them in that moment that a horrible thing was done to someone’s child on the other side - because they are too busy grieving the horrible thing done to their family.   I understand the true horror of what Hamas terrorists did. No marginally sane or moral person could not be deeply affected by it, with some combination of extreme sadness and a deep vengeance seeking anger.

But at the end of the day we are dealing with dead people. If one side causes a larger pile of innocent dead people than the other side, it should matter very little whether some of the smaller pile of innocent dead people had worse things done to them before they died than the dead innocent people in the larger pile.  You are unconsciously weighing the value of the deaths in a different manner. You seem to suggest it is not as horrible for a Palestinian parent who just dug the dead body of their small child out of rubble of their home to view that incident as deeply as the parents of the horrifically raped and murdered 14-year-old feel in their - what - more worthy horror?

That strikes me as deeply wrong.  Perhaps just as wrong to say there is zero equivalence as it is to say there is a perfect equivalence.  Neither take leads to successful communication and a more positive outcome. Your take is that intent and reasons to kill innocents is more important than the outcome of how many dead innocent people were killed by “better” people.  The dead do not care about that.  It is the same kind of thinking that says it is terrible for Japanese to do war crimes, but not so bad for American air power to firebomb major Japanese cities and kill 100 times more Japanese civilians than American military were killed in death marches and prisoner beheadings.  The so-called lack of our evil intent was not solace to the dead burnt babies in Tokyo.  We were fortunate that the Japanese culture is what it is, and their level of social acceptance and conformity prevented the type of reaction that Americans citizens would’ve had if Japan had firebombed California and killed 100,000 civilians. 

I get revenge.  My late father-in-law arrived with the Enterprise December 8, 1941.    He wished we’d dropped more nuke bombs.   The parents of the dead raped Israeli girl agree totally. Hate and vengeance are easy and ubiquitous defaults.

The IDF not only has the capacity to inflict violence on a larger scale, they historically have done so.  if they aren’t doing so now, it’s because of pressure from the United States and in other countries, and not from some deep sense of restraint.   If you measure the number of dead innocent civilian bodies on the respective piles, Israel and Hamas are auditioning to be Northern Ireland forever.   it looks like they may achieve that.   

tl:dr.    It is just as important to look at the number of dead civilians killed by a side as it is to look at the evil intent driving one side when they kill the other side’s innocent civilians.  The dead fucking. don’t. care.

[956 Worldwide 34715]

@Gatorubet, this take strikes me a deeply wrong on both a legal and moral level. 
 

On the legal side, it’s perfectly fair to say “the dead and their families don’t care about intent,” but third parties most certainly should and do. I even think you’re a lawyer, right? Every legal system in existence assigns different levels of culpability and guilt and takes intent into account and treats people and their crimes very differently. Intent is nearly always the core of what it means to be criminally liable. 
 

On a moral level, you’ve also argued yourself into a weird place.  Assigning equal equivalence to the United States and Imperial Japan (it’s always Japan and never the Germans in these comparisons) should give anyone with a sense of scale and history pause. The IJA and its crimes were so vast and so traumatizing it’s difficult to explain here. It’s 2023 and we celebrated a trilateral summit between the U.S. and its two most important Pacific partners (ROK and Japan), both wealthy democracies with basically no competing geopolitical interests. Why was it such a big deal to get them in the same room? Because of what the IJA did to Koreans during WWII, that the United States stopped. It absolutely makes a difference why someone is doing the bombing, and it makes a difference whether the atrocity is the goal or if it was a crime committed as part of a defensive war, or if it was a mistake in targeting (back to intent).

Not to mention you’ve also argued yourself into “perfect equivalence” between the 8th Air Force and the Wehrmacht and even SS. To quote you:

Quote

 If one side causes a larger pile of innocent dead people than the other side, it should matter very little whether some of the smaller pile of innocent dead people had worse things done to them before they died than the dead innocent people in the larger pile.  

I shouldn’t need to point out that Nazi Germany killed very few American and proportionally few UK civilians while we killed a great deal many German civilians both in air and ground combat.  That’s what it meant to lose a war, and there were very grave outcomes at stake. 

You go on to say that it matters little whether a child is killed in an air raid or raped to death. Was it morally equivalent whether a German child died in an air raid as when a Jewish child was stuffed in a gas chamber or shot in a ravine in western Ukraine? Those deaths can—and should— be weighed extremely differently and the armed forces that caused them are in no way and you know that very well.

[956 Worldwide 34715]

Also— and in a serious and not snarky way— please read some women and feminist historians, survivors and conflict scholars before saying that it doesn’t really matter whether someone is raped and killed in a war zone or whether they die in an air raid. Rape as a weapon of war is a big deal. It matters very, very much. 
 

I

[Jatrain 288]

On 12/2/2023 at 8:02 AM, 956 Worldwide said:

There is zero equivalence between the IDF and Hamas/IJP.  The IDF has the capability and the current mandate to inflict violence on a larger scale. But don’t get twisted: for Hamas/IJP murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, and terror are not by-products, aberrations, or even means to an end. They are the end in and of themselves. 
 

This is why I posted up thread that the current trendy framework of viewing morality and ethics through a lens of “who has power” is a broken worldview. Sometimes, often even, the powerful are the more good, or least bad. 

Are you suggesting that the IDF (and other Israeli security forces) don’t subject Palestinian women to sexual violence, including rape?

Or are you saying that the rapes performed by Hamas is worse than the rapes performed by Israel?