Arab world tells Hamas to lay down arms and end rule of Gaza - support UN force in Gaza

[The Brad Dad]

They'd have to surrender the Hostages as well, but yes. The 9/11 comparison is apt except that - as you note - it was relatively an order of magnitude less loss than Israel suffered.

Israel has been committing genocide. The "magnitude of the loss" they suffered was Bibi's own Reigstag fire.

 

[cpwill]

Hum i mention bloodthirsty nationalists because nuttyahu has directly promoted and made bedfellows with the very fascists that are gaining popularity in europe

Interesting. I haven't bothered to keep up much with diplomatic dealings between Israel and fascists in Europe.

Are these the kinds of fascists that everyone thinks about when they think about fascists? Or are they the kinds of "fascists" who think things like "there are two genders" or "we should limit mass immigration"?

and you mention everyone else?

Well, there are a lot of nationalists about, bloody and otherwise. As a result, I do not think your contention "the days of them running the world are ending" is likely to prove correct.

Curious. As i recall Canada is recognizing the PA, not hamas.

so long as it is seen locally as a victory for HAMAS (and it is), then what Canada wants it to be seen as is irrelevant to the question of how it will actually impact the situation on the ground.

I blame nuttyahu and his gang of thugs for this.

then you are wrong. Netanyahu didn't start this war - HAMAS did. They started this war, and they keep it going, because they think they are winning.

And one of the main reasons they think they are winning is because of other countries coming out to recognize Palestinian statehood, and the rising tide of opposition to Israel in the West. We are giving them what they want, and as a result, we are going to get more of this kind of behavior out of them.

We can continue to starve palestinians and say “quit hitting yourself” or act

We are not starving the Palestinians, nor am I aware of any black bag operations in which Israel hits the Palestinians and then claims it was the Palestinians who did so.

But blaming Netanyahu (however you much you dislike him) for Israel being in a war with Gaza is like blaming Zelensky (however much people dislike him) for Ukraine being in a war with Russia. It is the other side who started the war, and who refuses to end it.

Dunno what else to do at this point.

Well, we should probably not make it worse by continuing to convince HAMAS that prolonging the conflict is their path to victory.

 

[cpwill]

Israel has been committing genocide. The "magnitude of the loss" they suffered was Bibi's own Reigstag fire.

....yeah.... no. color me increasingly suspicious about your self-claims.

 

[Apocalypse]

....yeah.... no. color me increasingly suspicious about your self-claims.

You and me both.

 

[bomberfox]

Interesting. I haven't bothered to keep up much with diplomatic dealings between Israel and fascists in Europe.

Are these the kinds of fascists that everyone thinks about when they think about fascists? Or are they the kinds of "fascists" who think things like "there are two genders" or "we should limit mass immigration"?



Well, there are a lot of nationalists about, bloody and otherwise. As a result, I do not think your contention "the days of them running the world are ending" is likely to prove correct.




so long as it is seen locally as a victory for HAMAS (and it is), then what Canada wants it to be seen as is irrelevant to the question of how it will actually impact the situation on the ground.




then you are wrong. Netanyahu didn't start this war - HAMAS did. They started this war, and they keep it going, because they think they are winning.

And one of the main reasons they think they are winning is because of other countries coming out to recognize Palestinian statehood, and the rising tide of opposition to Israel in the West. We are giving them what they want, and as a result, we are going to get more of this kind of behavior out of them.




We are not starving the Palestinians, nor am I aware of any black bag operations in which Israel hits the Palestinians and then claims it was the Palestinians who did so.

But blaming Netanyahu (however you much you dislike him) for Israel being in a war with Gaza is like blaming Zelensky (however much people dislike him) for Ukraine being in a war with Russia. It is the other side who started the war, and who refuses to end it.




Well, we should probably not make it worse by continuing to convince HAMAS that prolonging the conflict is their path to victory.

I consider AFD and Georgia Meloni’s party to be fascist parties for example. I think we agree Trump is a fascist. I dont consider TERFs to be fascists, just rather mean spirited individuals with a hate problem. That doesnt make them fascists. Hell Meloni’s party soon after getting elected tried to violently storm and beat people in a labor union’s HQ.

 

[cpwill]

But if you genuinely believe that, would it not be correct to say that you think war crimes and crimes against humanity are not an actual thing?

War Crimes absolutely exist - we have Laws of War, and violations of those are War Crimes.

But War Crimes are action-oriented (because it is the actions that are legally constrained and outlined). "Many civilians died" is not in and of itself a War Crime (though it can be a War Crime to kill one or a handful or many civilians). The same action can be or not be a War Crime depending on the context.

For example: Let's say that we are at war with the Republic of Texas, and we decide that the heart and soul of the Texan people hold great honor and respect for the Holy Bucc-ees. So, we decide to bomb the Bucc-ees chain and, as a result, 1500 civilians are killed. That is a war crime, because what was being targeted was purely civilian and an object of cultural importance.

Same Scenario, but, this time, we are at war with Texas and we discover that the Texan Military is using Bucc-ees as a core logistics support structure, providing the critical gasoline and bar-b-que resources that keep the Texan Military going. So, we do the same bombing and - once again - 1500 civilians are killed. That is NOT a war crime, because the target was a militarized one, despite it also being an object of cultural importance that held civilians.​

In the first scenario, the laws of war state that we would be responsible for the civilian deaths and cultural loss - because we are the ones who decided to militarize those targets. In the second scenario, the Republic of Texas would be responsible for those losses because they were the ones who decided to militarize those targets.

We ran into this issue a lot in Fallujah. The enemy liked to leverage Mosques and medical facilities (buildings and ambulances) because they knew that A) we would be initially hesitant to destroy those, giving them a tactical advantage, and B) once we finally did respond with force, they could get a lot of mileage out of accusing us of bombing mosques and medical facilities. This was a war crime on the part of AQI - specifically, the war crime of Perfidy (which I think we've talked about before). Perfidy is very - very - forbidden because not only does it require the opposing army to engage culturally significant, medical, and other entities, but because it strips protection from all the other entities that present in that way. I think I've told you a couple of times about our experience with children being weaponized in this way. It's not only evil because it forced us to shoot children who were direct threats; it was bad because it forced us to start treating all children as potentially lethal threats, and, as a result, non-lethally-threatening children were also killed.

This is also why it is a war crime (for example) for HAMAS to refuse to wear uniforms. Dressing in civilian clothing forces the IDF to start considering all civilians as potentially lethal threats. HAMAS knows this, and that is a big part of why they do it.

That is also why it is a war crime (for example) when HAMAS troops pretend to be surrendering as cover for an attack. It forces the IDF to start considering everyone presenting as surrendering as a potentially lethal threat. HAMAS has also pretended to be medical personnel (forcing the IDF to start considering all persons presenting as medical personnel as potential lethal threats) and escaping hostages (forcing the IDF to start considering all individuals presenting as escaped hostages as potential lethal threats).

These people are in the line of fire because HAMAS put them there, and the Laws of War are correct to thereby ascribe responsibility for their losses to HAMAS, just as they blamed the Republic of Texas for the loss to Bucc-ees in the second scenario, above.

That we never should have held the Nuremberg Trials or Japanese War Crimes Trials, and that none of those militaries should have been held liable, as they were little but drawn-out vengeance pornography? Do you think we should just drop the pretense and let our military and every other military behave however it wants like the Japanese military did during World War 2?

Certainly not. It is good that we have the Laws of War. But if we want to actually uphold the Laws of War, then we need to uphold the actual Laws of War.

 

[cpwill]

I have no evidence of Israel's restraint beyond "They could have killed more people."

Well....

1. That is sort of the definitional evidence of the existence of Restraint. That is sort of the most basic, baseline indicator.

2. I would urge you to actually spend more time reading the accounts of people who have been inside the Israeli targeting process.

When we point out that Israel provides greater protections to civilians in the area than we do inside of those processes - that really matters. When we point out that Israel limits itself more than we do to protect civilians in its operations - that really matters.

As it so happens, for example, the NY Times has a former military lawyer writing on staff (I do not always agree with his analysis, and think he is getting at least somewhat culturally captured by his institution, but he is generally well thought out and attempts to adhere to actual law) who talks about this stuff in an informed manner. That might be a worthwhile source for you to start honing in on the right questions.

...."If it was Germany's goal to murder all the Jews of Poland, why go to all this trouble of concentrating them in Ghettoes for nearly the last two years? The Germans have the largest, most-experienced, most-advanced military ever fielded on the European mainland. If they wanted to kill all the Jews of Poland, they could have done so anytime within days or weeks! They have the manpower and bullets to stage a mass pogrom and massacre. If anything, the relatively small number of Jewish deaths in Poland as a result of violence, disease and malnourishment as compared both to the Jewish population and the number of Polish Slavs who have been liquidated just shows the incredible restraint and honor of the German military, despite the irresponsible rhetoric of their Chancellor and some of his more thuggish ministers!"

Eh. The Germans were killing Jews at about the fastest rate that they could - they built the camps because "line them up and shoot them individually" was taking too long; which is why they had to set up extermination systems to process those millions of people individually inside of infrastructure that they wanted to keep.

But that may be a separate conversation for a history forum.

I think you are whistling past the graveyard, cpwill. The outrage over Gaza has been sustained and has only grown over time while support for Israel from all quarters of our society has diminished, including among American Jews (while not the majority, and increasing number of younger Jews have no affinity for Israel or are outright anti-Zionist).

I do think it is likely that Israel becomes a partisan issue, as (for example) Ukraine has become. However, I think you are overestimating the degree to which people are upset because they are actually focused on the situation and responding to reality on the ground, and the degree to which people are upset because their media feeds are telling them to be so.

Why do you think the same people are not more upset about worse privation in other places - including where US partners are implicated (such as Saudi Arabia in Yemen, for example, where 500,000+ people died, roughly ten times as many as have died in Gaza?).

Because their media didn't tell them to be upset, or spend a lot of time and effort triggering their emotional responses by giving them things like (deliberately dishonest, it turns out) pictures of suffering children to make them as angry as possible.

When that same media apparatus needs to win the mid terms for the Democrats (or when people start getting bored of Gaza) I believe we'll watch Gaza go the way of Ukraine, and just... slowly... become less salient.

Further as to all the other genocides across the world, what makes Israel's genocide more horrible for Americans is that we are being made culpable for it.

What makes other genocides more horrible is that they are at least actually occurring, unlike the claimed "Genocide in Gaza", which does not (currently) actually exist.

Which is why the organizations that have come out to accuse Israel of Genocide first have to carefully change the definitions they use to adopt a "broader analysis" that basically redefines "Urban Combat" as "Genocide".

 

[The Brad Dad]

....yeah.... no. color me increasingly suspicious about your self-claims.

Thats fine. Look at all so called Christians rooting on genocide. Lots of that going aroind, I guess.