This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The large scale deliberate killing of civilians (including children) during wartime was a feature of practically every major conflict until quite recently. If it’s a question of (western) Christianity versus Judaism, why did countless Christian armies behave in the same way until the second half of the 20th century? Overall, civilian casualties in Gaza remain within reasonable bounds for an intense war against an entrenched guerrilla force that doesn’t wear uniforms in an extremely dense urban environment. If there are Israelis who wish they could genocide the Palestinians (and there surely are), they’re nowhere near starting to do so.
Most importantly, the Palestinians have an extra option that most of our tribal ancestors (whether Jewish or gentile, Muslim or Christian, European or Arab) did not have: they can surrender and live a comfortable second-world developing country lifestyle and have four kids and enjoy much of what life has to offer. Sure, they’ll be second class citizens in a state they don’t really control and have little say in the politics of, but so have countless people throughout history.
For most of the past thousand years, in most of the Muslim world, Jews had a much worse deal than the worst reasonable outcome of a Total Palestinian Surrender. The life Arabs in Israeli-controlled territory are essentially being offered is, after all, not substantially worse than the life Arabs in most non-petrostate Middle Eastern countries already live. No Jew should feel guilt about this when in truth the Palestinians have already been treated far more generously and with far greater concern for their wellbeing than it would be if (and was when) the situation was reversed.
Edit: Having read the other comments, especially the discussion of military rounds that fail to penetrate a kid's skull and are thus conveniently visible on x-ray, my money is on the NYT falling for fakes created by motivated people. The doctors would not even have to be die-hard Hamas supporters bent on the destruction of Israel. If I had had the misfortune of spending months working in a wartime hospital, I might also consider telling a 'little white lie' about the fraction of dead kids who were shot to the head, if I thought that this is the best way to stop the killing.
Shame on me for believing that the NYT would consult with experts to check the plausibility of their reporting and thereby ruin a great story.
End of edit.
The claim by the NYT is not that deliberately targeted kids amount to a large fraction of war victims, the claim is that such targeting happens and is tolerated to some degree.
I have previously defended the IDF against people comparing the civilian death tolls of their war against Hamas to the death toll of Oct 7. My argument was that the Hamas attacks were worse not in their death tolls, but in their malicious intent. Everyone fighting a war accepts some civilian casualties. Israel went further than most belligerents regarding the amount of collateral deaths they would stomach, especially when targeting senior commanders, but I would still argue that blowing up 50 Palestinians in a refugee camp to get one bad guy is different from Hamas executing civilians one by one.
People, states and causes are in part not judged by their median action, but by their worst action. As the joke goes, "But just one little sheep!". A doctor who saves the life a thousand patients and murders and eats three others would not be judged by his average or median impact, but by his worst deeds. Likewise, anyone arguing that the Nazis were not as evil as generally depicted because only 0.9% of the German population was Jewish would totally fail to convince any audience. The reason that Abu Ghraib turned into a scandal was because it was the median case.
Headshot six-year-olds are both unmistakably non-combatants and also unmistakably the results of deliberate targeting. I would expect dead six-year-olds, and perhaps headshot 15-yo (unless Hamas happens to abide by the conventions against child soldiers, which seems unlikely). Perhaps a hand full of headshot 6-yo could be attributed to bad luck but any more than that would suggest deliberate targeting of kids.
While I did not much care for the IDF's tactics before, I was willing to cut them some slack as their goal to wipe Hamas from the face of the Earth seemed worthy. If further evidence confirms that parts of the IDF were able to conspire to shoot small kids, then I would become indifferent between them and Hamas, as in 'they are both evil and I hope they both succeed in destroying the other, too bad about the decent people caught in their fight'.
At the moment, I am noticing that I am confused. Even if the IDF was full of people who thought that killing Palestinian kids was virtuous, neither the rank and file nor especially the command would be oblivious about the fact that the rest of the world does not share that value judgement. An IDF sniper killing a small child would bring the destruction if Israel closer in a second than a hundred Hamas fighters could do in their lifetime. Nor do I find it plausible that the command would remain unaware of unauthorized past-times of their sniper teams, we are talking about a digital age state known for its intelligence services here. On the other hand, if large parts of the IDF had a collective fetish for child murder, why would they not pick a more deniable way to accomplish that? They could just bomb a school (or wherever kids gather in wars) and claim that it was used as a base to shoot missiles into Israel, the NYT would be very unlikely to prove them wrong.
Another explanation would be that it is some kind of Hamas op. While Hamas path to victory is paved with the murders of Palestinian kids (because Israel can not be defeated while it is backed by the US, and the best way to turn the US from Israel are dead kids for which IDF can be blamed), it very much does not sound like their usual MO. "Climb on some rooftop and shoot some random kids in Gazan streets" does not seem like an order the median Hamas member would follow.
Slightly more plausible would be that they shot kids who had just of whatever 'natural causes' will kill you in a warzone post mortem, and then carried them to the hospital. Still does not seem very likely.
If IDF is targeting small kids, the obvious move on Hamas part would be to smuggle out their corpses and pass them to governments for forensic analysis. If ten different countries go 'yup, they died because of wounds inflicted with calibers used by IDF' that would likely be the beginning of the end of Israel as Harris and Trump race to the microphones to promise and end of all weapon shipments.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link