This post has been removed by the moderators of r/PoliticalDiscussion
[removed]
With respect to the current conflict between Israel and Gaza, have governments and international organizations been more willing to condemn one side than the other, and if so, why? It is there an appropriate reason as to why this is happening?
Partially because condemnation of Hamas is kind of redundant in a lot of cases. Most people who've spent any real time looking at the issue are not going to look at the actions of Hamas and say "Yes, these are good things." Condemning them or demanding they be condemned time and time again is kinda like having to constantly having to affirm whenever you get into a discussion about something that "water is wet" - we know this, we agree on this, there's no point in constantly repeating it.
There's also the need to differentiate understanding something versus condoning it. I can understand why Hamas takes the actions it does without saying that I support those actions and the problem comes when someone wants to take focus off Israel by hammering on Hamas and they deliberately conflate those two to make it seem like even understanding Hamas' motivations is the exact same as saying you think Hamas is right.
There's also the fact that Hamas and Israel are not on the same level, not by a long shot.
Israel has access to resources and capabilities that Hamas does not and as the dominant power in the area they have expectations of their behavior that Hamas isn't as subject to. Israel tends to operate on the principle that "it's ok to do anything to the Palestinians that they do to us" and that's understandable if you're dealing with a peer power but Hamas and Israel aren't even in the same universe.
If Israel had been abiding by basic rules of international law, there would be a lot fewer UN resolutions against them. Israel wants to be considered a modern state and be given the deference afforded that position, that comes with some requirements and those requirements include not engaging in retaliatory violence which is something that Israel has done for decades. If an armed group kidnaps and kills your citizens, you are then not allowed to identify where that group came from and kidnap and kill a bunch of people from there. If you want to be part of an international order that has said that behavior is unacceptable, you don't then get to get mad when people call you out for doing it.
There is an expectation that an organized, modern state (which Israel claims to be) does not engage in that kind of "eye for an eye" approach. You can call that hypocritical given other circumstances around the world (and I wouldn't wholly disagree with you) but the fact remains that Israel wants to be treated like a modern nation but doesn't want to have to follow any of the rules that modern nations have agreed to follow.
I'm going to ask you one more time to answer my question and if that's something you're not prepared to do, that's fine, but I'm not interested in continuing this - are you asserting that you believe there are never instances where the use of lethal force is a valid option?
Can you answer my question?
Are you telling us that there's never any instances where lethal force is a valid option?
It is not an attempt at a "both sides".
It genuinely is. You're putting both of them in the same bucket - "Killing people is bad and both of them kill people so they're both bad."
There's no attempt to understand their position relative to each other. You're artificially weakening Israel and artificially strengthening Hamas.
There is no justification for targeting civilians. You do not seem to agree with this.
I think if you have other options targeting civilians is not justifiable. I think the picture gets a lot less clear when you're in a position where that's not the case.
You said before that you aren't trying to downplay or justify what Hamas did, but you really are. You saying that you can't speak on it is a cop out.
Only if your goal is to try and force an answer to a loaded question.
Being an aggrieved party doesn't justify murder, no matter how bad you were wronged. You just won't come out and say it.
I won't say it because I don't believe it. On an individual level, if someone is trying to kill you and you have no other options but to respond with lethal force then I'd call that justified.
On a societal level, I don't think you can make a blanket statement when it comes to people fighting for their own existence.
The personal opinions of survivors of the event where civilians were maimed and or murdered and having their lives ruined certainly matters. If You were a settler in your home (even if the settlement is illegal) and people burst in and massacred your family, the people left standing's opinions matter.
You'll forgive me if I don't give much weight to the opinions of people on the forefront of a genocidal colonialist project.
All parties involved in this conflict are murderers. Again, that isn't a specious "both sides" argument, it's absolutely true. Not to draw an exact parallel, but slaves who killed slave owners families were murderers. Native Americans who targeted civilians were also murderers. Certain actions are never to be tolerated.
So there's never any instances where lethal force against another human being is tolerable?
That is always unacceptable?
You didn't answer my questions about how Hamas is supposed to fight ? How can they fight Israel?
I think that's my question to ask. Irregular warfare is one of the few options open when the balance of power is this dramatic.
I understood your overall point. You say Hamas are freedom fighters. They fight. How are they supposed to fight? I think you are dodging legitimate questions, by dismissing them as "word games", because you suspect that the answers won't make you look good. Who cares if they make you look good or not? You should just be honest with your answers and stand by your convictions, regardless of how it makes you look. I have seen people on here justify Hamas targeting civilians, citing revolutions as being "messy". On the flip side,I have seen people justifying the wanton killing of civilians by Israel in Gaza. Just blame Hamas and call it a day. Callous as hell the whole lot of them. If Hamas fighting back is legitimate, then how are they supposed to fight back? They cannot match Israel militarily, that's plain as day. So what recourse do they have? I ask again, was the attack on Oct. 7th legitimate? If so, what part of the Oct. 7th attack was legitimate. Was the attack justified? Where did they go too far? What is a legitimate way for Hamas to fight Israel?
What you're interpreting as cageyness is me not wanting to stake a position where I have no real business doing so.
Yes, I have personal opinions about things but I don't think those personal opinions matter much considering how far removed I am from the situation. I'm not in a position where I genuinely believe (with some good evidence) that I'm facing complete destruction no matter what I do. I haven't watched my entire family ripped apart by Israeli bombs. I haven't seen my home stolen by Israeli settlers at the point of IDF guns.
I don't think it's my place to QB decisions made by people who are fighting for their lives. That doesn't mean I don't have personal opinions but I don't think those personal opinions are relevant.
Warmongers on either side, while repugnant, are at least honest. They don't dance around the fact that they either actively seek to destroy the lives of civilians, and/or they are wholly indifferent to their harm and destruction and suffering. I see a lot of dancing around those admissions on here. I see warmongers masking their true sentiment. Nobody under any circumstance should target civilians or be reckless and put civilians in harms way even if it's indirectly. Israel should not launch missiles into residential areas even if Hamas is located in those areas. No justification. That is murder on Israels part. Israeli soldiers gunning down random civilians that are not fighters is disgusting. That is murder. Hamas should not target civilians, even if they have no chance of matching Israel militarily. That is murder on the part of Hamas. Netanyahu's people are a bunch of murderers. Haniyeh's people are a bunch of murderers. Point blank.
And if this were a situation where Palestine and Israel were at least near peer in terms of strength and capacity, I might be more sympathetic to the "both sides are bad" idea.
As it is, that's not the case. Israel has the capacity to deescalate the security situation. If they pull back, they do not risk their existence. If Palestine backs down, they cease to exist or at least believe that they do.
My overall point was that it's possible to condemn a specific event even if you agree with some of the goals of the group that took part in the event.
You chose to focus on the fact that I said "a little," bypassing entirely the point I was making with that statement in an attempt to make it seem like I was trying to soften the impact of October 7th or excuse Hamas' actions by softening my language.
You want to play word games, that's fine, I just don't want to participate.
I'm not particularly interested in continuing this considering you're working from a set of ideas that is not rooted in reality and I'm genuinely not interested in fighting about basic facts.
If you want to do some reading and then come back, by all means do so.
What has been happening to Gaza since the 7th has been happening to Palestine for 70 years.
Were I in a position to be listened to, I would have Israel lay out some very clear terms to Hamas.
Give us anyone responsible for the planning or execution of the attacks. They will be tried in court on an individual basis and punished under Israeli law.
We will guarantee the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and we will greatly lift import/export restrictions as well as the overall blockade.
Beyond that, I would have Israel be a proactive part of facilitating growth and prosperity in Gaza. Part of the problem with the dynamic that has been established so far with Israel is that Israel will not allow anything to be built in Palestine in general.
It means that Palestinians don't have the chance to build up a life where peace is a worthwhile option. People in general want to solve conflicts peacefully because we've built up something we don't want to lose or destroy. That kernel of stability and peace, however small, will make a lot of people be willing to put up with a lot of brutality if it just means they can build something.
Israel is not making peace a viable choice because no matter what choice the average Palestinian makes, Israel is going to destroy their neighborhood and steal their home. So what's the incentive to be peaceful?
Israel needs to take a committed role in supporting Palestine and Palestinians if it wants to take the wind out of the sails of groups like Hamas. The answer to extremism isn't violence, that will virtually always backfire. The answer is to make turning away from extremists more appealing and you do that by building something people want to be a part of.
It isn't just "condemning" them that is the problem. It is recognizing their role they have in perpetuating the conflict and harming Palestinians themselves. That never happens because it requires admitting the conflict actually is complex.
Just banal "Yes Hamas is bad but Israel...." doesn't actually address the problem of Hamas being the governing authority in Gaza and having its own responsibilities to both Palestinians and their conduct as a party to this war.
Except the conflict isn't that complex. That's kind of the thing.
The TL;DR of the situation is a ten minute YT video.
It's also possible to acknowledge that Hamas has abrogated their duties towards Palestinians to some degree while also acknowledging that it's impossible to govern well when you're constantly being attacked.
Israel has a far, far larger share of the power in the dynamic between Palestine and Israel. Israel de facto controls what comes in or goes out, they issue work permits to Palestinians, they control the borders. In that sense, Israel has more meaningful control over Gaza than Hamas.
If Hamas takes the actions it does because it just absolutely wants to murder all Jews, then that changes the conversation does it not?
Not particularly. Wanting genocide is, obviously, not good but it doesn't greenlight a genocide attempt in return.
It means it isn't some "resistance" group that goes too far sometimes. It means it is an actual cancer that needs to be removed somehow.
And there are absolutely ways to do that that don't involve killing 30,000 people. Israel simply isn't interested in those ways because the goal is to remove the Palestinians, either into the Sinai or dead.
WHY NOT?
Israel has the unlimited backing of the largest military and economic machine in the history of the human species and effectively carte blanche to act as they please with no meaningful repercussions. Hamas is fighting with rockets fueled with literal sugar and shit.
If Israel literally today removed all settlements and implemented the two state solution that means Hamas would be in charge of the country of Palestine.
Unlikely, considering the PA and Fatah exist among others. But even if this were true, so what?
You can't ask for a state and self determination but then not accept the responsibility that goes along with it.
Israel doesn't seem to be bounded by that expectation.
Hamas isn't just an "armed group". They literally rule over 2.3 million people. That is larger than some countries.
This is what we are talking about how you don't actually condemn Hamas. You treat them as some rag tag group with no actual control over anything other than some rockets that get shot once in a while.
I'm confused how recognizing the realistic limits on their capabilities is somehow "not condemning" them.
Not a single country on the planet thinks of themselves as backwards. Every single one considers itself modern and still there are countless countries way worse than Israel.
"We're not as bad as Eritrea" is not the winning point you seem to feel it is.
This is just a dumb argument.
It is but I'm being patient with your presentation of it.
There is no proceeding. This is more of the same.
I can't help it if I'm not giving you the talking points you want.
If the civilian attacks somebody they are to be punished legally.
Ok, Israel doesn't seem to be doing that. So what do the Palestinians do? Do they have a right to protect themselves or not?
Not everybody that was killed was a settler that attacked somebody, and you know this.
That is true. My point is, again, to get you to understand that this is systemic violence and that people make up systems. People who are being targeted by systems of violence are going to fight back, something you've affirmed is their right to do.
You will claim, that many if not most settlers get away with their violence, and you'd likely be correct. Nevertheless, unless a person is attacking you directly at the moment, it is not self defense, and they are most definitely not a combatant. Attacking noncombatants is a war crime. I do see your point about settlers colluding and or acting with impunity with IDF, and I could see a case being made for them being considered combatants if they actively attack Palestinians as an organized group. A force if you will. Are most settlers (because it isnt all) acting as a militia/paramilitary force targeting Palestinians? I suspect this is not the case.But again, not every person that was killed that day was a settler that attacked Palestinians with violence.
Ok...so what are settlers who attack Palestinians?
They're only combatants when they're directly attacking Palestinians, otherwise they're non-combatants?
Self defense implies defending oneself at the moment.
Might want to tell Israel that because that's not the definition of self-defense they're using.
You are suggesting that Palestinians hunt down ALL settlers in retaliation. And again, this will devolve into ALL settlers being attacked not just the ones that engaged in direct violence. You are mentioning the settlers now, but that's not what you mentioned initially. What you are really saying is that it's ok to target Israeli civilians as a war tactic, but you disingenuously refuse to come out and say it. I knew this from the start and all these conversations are are just a long winded way of saying that it's ok to kill Israeli citizens because the ends justify the means.
Please don't put words in my mouth. I've deliberately stayed out of the "justifiable or not" question because I don't think my opinion is worth very much given that I'm not in that situation.
But I suspect that you will claim that even if they dont directly engage in violence against Palestinians, they are reaping the benefits of violence and perpetuating it by placing themselves on land that was taken with violence, and are therefore aiding and abetting the perpetrators of said violence and are therefore legitimate targets. That is a very slippery slope.
I was with you right up until the bolded portion. I do absolutely contend that Israel's security situation is a mess of its own making and as such I feel little sympathy for people who are reaping the returns of their actions. That does not mean that I think such actions are justified.
This is why I made it clear several posts earlier that Native Americans and Slaves who killed the families of whites or just any random white they came across are also in the wrong. I suspect that you'd apply the same logic and think that Native Americans and slaves that attacked the families of violent settlers and slaveowers or just random whites, were in the right, or at least not as wrong as the settlers or slaveowners, because the families, or just random citizens still benefit and reinforce the colonialism, simply by living in and accepting that system. I disagree, that is still wrong.
What do you expect First Nations and black people in these situations to do?
Courts really weren't an option, they had no rights.
What's baffling me is you seem to believe people who are facing their own extinction are under some kind of obligation to be nice to the people doing the exterminating.
There were a number of Jewish partisan groups in WWII that murdered German civilians, was that wrong?
Was Nakam wrong for trying to kill German POWs?
Your points about settlers in the American West or the slaveowners are just as hazy as your questions about the Israeli settlers. Lets say for example, that we go by your logic, and the settlers in the American west or slaveowners in the south (or north)who used violence were to be considered legitimate targets..would it just be the individual settler or slaveowner, or their family as well? So the Native Americans or the slaves would burst in and kill just the settler or slave owner guilty of violence, and spare everybody else? Nah, you and I both know that's not generally how violence works. Generally I those kinds of situations, everybody gets it. So condemning the settler or slave owner to death is in essence condemning everybody to death, whether they are guilty of violence or not.
The third option is to just to shrug and suggest to the family living on stolen land or the slave owner "Hey, maybe don't do that."
I'm not going to advocate for civilians to be killed or condone it but I'm also not going to cry when people who are a proactive part of carrying out a genocide face some consequences for their actions.
I suspect we will not see eye to eye on this matter. You accuse me of being very reductive by placing people into little boxes of "good guy" and "bad guy", but I see that as projection your part. You seem to be the one that has chosen the "good guys" and bad guys", in that Israeli's, civilians and all are the "bad guys" and Palestinians, Hamas and all, are the "good guys", or at the very least Palestinians and Hamas are the "better guys". The lesser of two evils so to speak, and you give them the benefit of the doubt.
You're right. I'm not going to put Palestine and Israel on the same level because they're just not. Israel is a modern economy with the explicit backing of the most powerful nation in the world and diplomatic cover to act as it pleases. Palestine is an occupied country.
So no, I'm not going to be "fair" to Israel. The tables are already so tilted in their favor they might as well be walls. They have a much greater capacity to act in this dynamic and a greater capacity to work towards peace. That they refuse to do so tells me they're not interested in peace.
Again, you wont come out and say it, but you are justifying Hamas and other groups targeting and hurting and maiming and killing Israeli civilians, settlers or otherwise. You keep dancing around it. Just say it directly. You have done everything but say it. It's clear as day that that's what you are implying, so why not come out with it? Again, that speaks volumes. You have had many chances to say it, but you refuse to. This is not you being cagey, you just won't say it. If you have implied it so strongly why not just come out with it? You are very explicit in calling for me to answer a question, but you refuse to answer a question yourself.
I'm not going to say what you want me to say because I don't believe it. You keep doing this "do you oppose them or support them?" and just can't process that someone could say "neither." You keep trying to discover hidden motivations or doublespeak when the truth really is that I just reject the premise of the question.
I think you're artificially reducing the complexity of the question in order to create binaries which then allows you to create villains and heroes. It's psychologically satisfying but it does a disservice because it gives us a poor understanding of the topic. Your next paragraph is basically that - boiling everything down to a "yes/no" that is set up as a gotcha and I'm not interested in playing that game.
When you say irregular warfare, that's a dog whistle for targeting civilians because you have hinted that the Palestinians are facing a much stronger foe and that's their only recourse.
When I say "irregular warfare" I mean combat between two forces where one force greatly outnumbers and out guns the other wherein the smaller force relies on attacking the larger force in areas of strategic weakness or supply lines to offset their smaller numbers. There's no dogwhistles here.
In your eyes, since the Palestinians can't possibly beat Israel militarily, then they are justified in targeting Israeli civilians (ie irregular warfare), because that's their only chance. Ultimately that is what your position is. You think that killing Israeli citizens is a valid, justifiable tactic. That's all these conversations are. Nothing more nothing less. Again, just be honest and state that that is your position clearly and directly. Is that your position? That it is ok for Israeli civilians to be targeted in this conflict by Hamas and other groups? Very simple question to answer. Yes or no. Be honest.
I reject the premise of the question. This is not a yes/no question.
I need to know how you can understand why a terrorist group believes killing children, taking hostages, and raping women is a reasonable or permissible response to the perception of Israel's actions in the region.
I'd first like you to point to where I said I believed such actions were permissible.
In terms of understanding, I think it's not hard to understand the position that a people who find themselves facing annihilation might find themselves in. Palestinians believe (rightly or wrongly, I would say rightly) that they are facing extermination as a people. At best, they're going to be a permanent diaspora population with no claim to their homes.
They've watched for almost a century as Israel has carried out repeated attacks, bombings, and land seizures with almost no meaningful pushback from the international community. They feel isolated and alone facing Israel which is backed by the US.
On a personal level, individual Palestinians have seen non-stop horrors for, again, close to a century now. The images I've seen over the last few months are going to haunt me until the day I die but probably the most profound was video of a man standing in a ruined building staring off into the middle distance, facing away from the camera. He had a small child in his arms who was very clearly not alive anymore. I'm not sure who they were to each other.
He turns and the camera shows his full face and it's just this mask of numbness. The child in his arms is literally gone from the waist down. She just literally stopped existing at the waist.
I don't think it takes a huge stretch of the imagination to see how someone could lose all sense of proportionate and rational response when going through something like that.
Why is it a problem to focus on the terrorist organization that is taking hostages, killing children, and raping women when there's a conflict between them and Israel?
It's only a problem when you do so as a way to avoid addressing the reason Hamas exists. Hamas exists because of Israel's actions and they are empowered by Israel's actions.
Are we allowed to have an expectation that the governing body in the Gaza Strip does not take hostages, murder children, and rape women?
That expectation seems to be too much for Israel given the reports that have come out of Israel for decades so you tell me - is that an expectation we can have of a governing body?
Is Israel taking civilian hostages in Gaza, targeting civilian children for murder, and raping Palestinian women in response to the 7 October attacks?
Yes.
A lot of people do see hamas as freedom fighters, not a gang of violent criminals they are.
It is possible to see Hamas as freedom fighters while also agreeing that something like October 7th took things a little too far. You can carry out reprehensible actions in the pursuit of a noble goal.
Another wrong assumption is that many people actually spent any real time thinking of if. Thinking is just not in human nature anymore
I have no particular interest in nihilism.
About Israel not going eye for an eye... The world tend to see a weak party more righteous even if being weak(er) is it's only virtue.
Because the way that the weaker party became that is generally something horrible and unjust. Most people don't see the South in the US as being more righteous despite them being weaker and getting housed.
Another wrong assumption is Israel really thinks "it's ok to do palestinians whatever they do to us"
Granted I'm not invited to Israeli cabinet meetings (throw one sandwich...) but the rhetoric that Israel uses to justify their actions certainly point to the idea that Israel feels that anything they can make people believe Palestinians have done justifies whatever Israel is doing.
Yet another wrong assumption is that the UN is anything more than a joke. Iran is currently presiding the UN's human rights council. Iran!!!
You'll get no argument from me that the UN isn't an ideal body but I think there's been a tendency to assume the UN is vastly more than it is, both positively and negatively. The UN, at the end of the day, is a place for nations to get together and solve problems in a structured way. They're not an independent government and they will only do what the constituent nations are willing to do.
UN employees are proven to take part in the hamas's little freedom act on 07/10.
Even assuming your statement is true (it's not, but let's just say), so what?
If an employee of Coca-Cola blows up a school, is Coca-Cola now responsible for what their employee did?
I'm not interested in playing word games.
When you said you could "understand why Hamas takes the actions it does without saying that I support those actions." There is no level of understanding that allows for any sort of anything other than horror at what Hamas did.
You're basically doing the exact thing I was talking about - conflating understanding the motivation behind something with accepting it.
How you feel about something is a separate thing to understanding why something works the way it does.
Oh stop it. Israel is not the aggressor party in the Middle East. You know this.
Israel was dropped into the Middle East in 1946 without consulting any of the nations in the region and immediately embarked on a violent campaign of ethnic cleansing. Seems pretty aggressor-y to me.
Hamas exists because they're a bunch of terrorists who want to kill Jews. That's it. That's the whole thing.
I'm curious to know why you think they have that motivation.
Subreddit
Post Details
- Posted
- 8 months ago
- Reddit URL
- View post on reddit.com
- External URL
- reddit.com/r/PoliticalDi...
An Israeli funded lobbying group doesn't like an arm of an international body that has been critical of Israel? I am shocked. Shocked, I say.
The second link is just "Israel says this happened." I'm not sure why I'm supposed to take that seriously.
Because hasbara works and Israel has deep, deep lobbying ties to a wide range of Western nations.
Well considering they're carrying out a genocide I'm not so sure I'd be so happy to affirm that what they're doing now is ok.
Also, I never said Israel is killing civilians "for the fun of it." That said, there's plenty of videos of IDF soldiers doing just that so...not sure what we're supposed to make of that. There's plenty more videos of Palestinians crossing streets with their arms up in the air being shot by Israeli snipers. Not sure why that would be done when the people being shot are women and children. I'm open to another explanation than "fun."
I genuinely do not care what a couple of college kids think even if they agree with me 100% nor does anyone else whose opinion matters.
If the bulk of your case is "college kid says a dumb thing" then what are we even doing here?