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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29415 thread views

Israel-Gaza Megathread #1

This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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The moral argument from the Zionist position here is that you can't see or hear the screaming Palestinian children dying a slow agonizing death whilst the concrete wall they are trapped under slowly grinds their pelvis to a mush. But you can see the videos of Israeli people captured and that has a more immediate pull on your heartstrings so that's where we draw the line.

This is not an uncharitable argument or a strawman. The actual argument is 'look at our propaganda and feel with us'. Any objective look at numbers tells us the story that jews in Israel have been massively overrepresenting the threat they face compared to any other integration issue facing the west. Be that black or Arab.

Any objective look at numbers tells us the story that jews in Israel have been massively overrepresenting the threat they face compared to any other integration issue facing the west.

Hamas's pathetic kd ratio isn't for lack of trying though, whereas I don't believe the dominant position in Israel is to kill as many Palestinians as possible. If Hamas got their hands on a nuclear weapon they would absolutely use it on Israel. That's the threat model.

And there are plenty of incompetent black criminals. What's your point? You don't think there are enough black people who hate white people in the US? There are plenty. If they got their hands on a nuclear weapon they would absolutely use it.

Considering the comments here and elsewhere, the only thing holding Israel back from doing their own little holocaust in Gaza is the international community of nations that don't like that sort of thing.

I think there is a different argument. When one bombs a target, one knows there may be collateral damage. When one purposefully attempts to kill a toddler, the death of the toddler isn’t a side effect.

This is just sophistry.

I don't believe you or anyone else actually believes that the aim of Hamas is to kill jewish toddlers. I think you and everyone else recognizes the goals of Hamas are a little broader in scope than that and that any dead jewish toddlers are collateral damage on the road towards those broader goals.

How is it sophistry? Maybe the Palestinian’s goal in killing the toddler is to affect political change, but it’s also true that the Palestinian purposefully murdered a toddler. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t collateral damage. It was the target.

That is different from say bombing a military target that might cause collateral damage. The collateral damage isn’t the target; it is a side effect.

The goal is not to kill a toddler any more than the Israeli goal is to kill a toddler. The goal is as much to kill a toddler as the Israeli goal is to kill a toddler. The rest is sophistry.

I think you and everyone else recognizes the goals of Hamas are a little broader in scope than that

Indeed, they want all the Jews dead, not just the toddlers.

and that any dead jewish toddlers are collateral damage on the road towards those broader goals.

Not collateral damage, just a low-priority target.

Really? Never seen that as a stated goal from them. Are you sure it's not just 'boo-outgroup'?

This guy is changing the meaning of the phrase collateral damage. It would be like saying “my goal is to obtain 10k so killing the bank employee was merely collateral damage.”

No one uses collateral damage in that way.

Your argument is that when your side kills civilians its collateral damage and when the other guys kill civilians its evil barbarity. The rest is sophistry.

Seriously? Words have meanings and you don’t just get to change the meaning to support your antisemitism (yes — I saw your other post where you mentioned jewish pharmacists with opioids where the status of the pharmacists as Jews was beside the point).

Collateral damage results in non-military targets being incidentally killed as a result of a military strike on a military target. That’s different compared to targeting civilian targets and killing those targets despite there being zero military objective (but a political one). One might say “what does it matter — the dead are dead alike.” True but generally outcome is not the only matter determine the morality of an act.

When you designate civilian infrastructure as a military target you are just playing with words. The existence of 'collateral damage' as a term is completely meaningless in this context. It is only invoked as a self serving defense for when the ingroup kills civilians.

when you place the military targets specifically inside civilian infrastructure to ensure your side has collateral damage collateral damage is of course an appropriate term.

So the only disagreement we have is whether Hamas using human shields.

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That applies fine to the grunts on the ground -- considering the leaders of Hamas, one could easily say there is no difference. After all, the fighters also attacked many legitimate military targets; when you let a bunch of armed fanatics loose on a population they've been trained to hate since birth, there's bound to be some 'collateral damage', they might say. (much as when you bomb a rocket emplacement in a city)

(also I remain interested to see where all this killing toddlers stuff is coming from -- it certainly seems like something Hamas people might do, but I've yet to see any actual documentation of it)

So when they used hang gliders to attack a musical festival that was just the grunts?

Probably not whoever's in charge of Hamas doing it personally?

But they signed off on the operation? Why are we assuming that when a vast majority of the targets were civilian that Hamas leadership was only interested in legitimate military targets but grunts fucked it up? No the easier explanation is that what the grunts spent a majority of their time on is what the leadership desires (and amplified).

There's a particular image floating around of a car seat with a blood stain where the head would rest and next to it an infant dress with blood along the top half. And this news report. Of course Journalist reliability and the reliability of their sources is always a factor.

So I haven't seen the image, but that report is just what I'm talking about -- a literal carbon copy of WWI 'bayonetting babies' propaganda, accompanied by a picture of some bodies that clearly are not babies.

Source: Israeli intelligence agents reached out to a 2-bit freelancer, and she crosschecked some photos of the event. Which of course can't be shared. This tweet is clearly a fabrication, whether something like that happened or not.

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