naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
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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.
Personally I think a 50 year limitation seems fair.
However I do feel the need to push back against the view that the Nakba was a Jewish injustice against Arabs. Arabs started the 1948 war. The Jews wanted a peaceful partition of the land. If they had simply allowed the Jews to live in the homes they had peacefully purchased, they would not have lost their own homes.
If the Ukraine/Russia war were to resolve with Ukraine expanding its territory somewhat, I would be very unsympathetic to the claims that this was a terrible injustice to the Russians.
Personally I think a 50 year limitation seems fair.
Do you agree that Israel should stop accepting their annual "sorry" payments from the German government, pursuing old men who were Nazis, etc?
It strikes me that it's basically impossible to make proper restitution for millions murdered, but relatively easy to make whole someone that's had their land connived and stolen away from them. If anything, all the Israeli schmaltz and guilt about WW2 should stop well before the Palestinians give up on regaining their rightful homes.
Both are in restitution for evils that are older than the state of Israel, ie well past your 50 year rule. If the Paelstinian cause has exceeded some statute of limitation, it follows that WW2 and all its attendant evils has passed also.
I agree that Germany does not today owe Israel (or the Jewish community more generally) any sort of reparations or apologies for the Holocaust. It's an awful history, but it's history.
Yeah - moving some 98yo geezer who was a piece of shit Nazi during WWII from a nursing home outside of a prison to a nursing home inside of a prison doesn't sound like the best use of the justice system's time and effort. Almost all of the perpetrators are dead.
If you're suggesting that the 98 year old shouldn't be jailed because he isn't going to harm anyone, by that reasoning it would also be wrong to jail an ex-Nazi 10 years after the fall of Berlin. It's not as if someone 10 years after the end of the war is going to run another concentration camp, after all, nor is he going to take over the country in order to get himself allowed to build one.
If punishment is to be a deterrent at all, you have to precommit to punish criminals even when doing so prevents no future crimes. Once you have done so, your precommitment forces you to punish them. And "desire for revenge" is how actual humans precommit.
If that ex-Nazi is damn near bedbound and suffering from terminal cancer or ALS or some shit, yeah, I wouldn't want to prosecute him all that hard. He can't commit lesser crimes for shit and he's going to be dead soon enough.
Idk. I can see arguments for clemency if the 40yo nazi in 1955 is quadriplegic or has terminal cancer or needs nursing home level care because he has ALS or something. You are just moving him from a free world nursing home to a prison one.
I thought we were talking about the "what a man did 50 years ago, he is not guilty for now" situations, not the "actually this man is exactly the same as he was 50 years ago and proud about it" situations. So no, if you're being a nazi today you're not decoupled from what nazis did 50 years ago, or 80 as it may.
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Notes -
Personally I think a 50 year limitation seems fair.
However I do feel the need to push back against the view that the Nakba was a Jewish injustice against Arabs. Arabs started the 1948 war. The Jews wanted a peaceful partition of the land. If they had simply allowed the Jews to live in the homes they had peacefully purchased, they would not have lost their own homes.
If the Ukraine/Russia war were to resolve with Ukraine expanding its territory somewhat, I would be very unsympathetic to the claims that this was a terrible injustice to the Russians.
Do you agree that Israel should stop accepting their annual "sorry" payments from the German government, pursuing old men who were Nazis, etc?
It strikes me that it's basically impossible to make proper restitution for millions murdered, but relatively easy to make whole someone that's had their land connived and stolen away from them. If anything, all the Israeli schmaltz and guilt about WW2 should stop well before the Palestinians give up on regaining their rightful homes.
I agree that Germany does not today owe Israel (or the Jewish community more generally) any sort of reparations or apologies for the Holocaust. It's an awful history, but it's history.
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Why are you tying these two things together?
Both are in restitution for evils that are older than the state of Israel, ie well past your 50 year rule. If the Paelstinian cause has exceeded some statute of limitation, it follows that WW2 and all its attendant evils has passed also.
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Yes, it accomplishes literally nothing.
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Topically, debt abolition (jubilee) among the ancient Israelites ran on 50 year cycles.
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Can we then put the Holocaust to rest and the stop using nazi as qualifier?
I agree that Germany does not today owe Israel (or the Jewish community more generally) any sort of reparations or apologies for the Holocaust. It's an awful history, but it's history.
Yeah - moving some 98yo geezer who was a piece of shit Nazi during WWII from a nursing home outside of a prison to a nursing home inside of a prison doesn't sound like the best use of the justice system's time and effort. Almost all of the perpetrators are dead.
If you're suggesting that the 98 year old shouldn't be jailed because he isn't going to harm anyone, by that reasoning it would also be wrong to jail an ex-Nazi 10 years after the fall of Berlin. It's not as if someone 10 years after the end of the war is going to run another concentration camp, after all, nor is he going to take over the country in order to get himself allowed to build one.
If punishment is to be a deterrent at all, you have to precommit to punish criminals even when doing so prevents no future crimes. Once you have done so, your precommitment forces you to punish them. And "desire for revenge" is how actual humans precommit.
If that ex-Nazi is damn near bedbound and suffering from terminal cancer or ALS or some shit, yeah, I wouldn't want to prosecute him all that hard. He can't commit lesser crimes for shit and he's going to be dead soon enough.
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Idk. I can see arguments for clemency if the 40yo nazi in 1955 is quadriplegic or has terminal cancer or needs nursing home level care because he has ALS or something. You are just moving him from a free world nursing home to a prison one.
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I thought we were talking about the "what a man did 50 years ago, he is not guilty for now" situations, not the "actually this man is exactly the same as he was 50 years ago and proud about it" situations. So no, if you're being a nazi today you're not decoupled from what nazis did 50 years ago, or 80 as it may.
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Please, yes.
But I doubt we'll get there for another generation or two.
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