site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29416 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.

20
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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.

That's not the disagreement at all. The disagreement is the use of vocabulary that only excuses civilian fatalities for one side but not the other.

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.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats