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Well I’m glad to hear more people stating the obvious. Well done Bern.
By only condemning human rights violations by Hamas and tacitly approving bigger war crimes by Israel, our American and European leaders are choosing sides in a very obvious and hypocritical manner.
We are unnecessarily antagonizing a billion Muslims and making ourselves a target for terrorism by blindly supporting an unjust apartheid state.
I don’t want to on the side of Hamas, but I also don’t want to be on the side of Israel.
Why drag us into this?
USA and rest of the Western world has enabled Israel for the last 70 years while the Palestinians have been systematically disenfranchised and radicalized. No one put in geniune effort to de-escalate this situation and now shit has hit the fan.
Are you a bot? Because you have your account set as one.
Hamas: murders a thousand I Innocent people, rapes a bunch of women (and by that I include girls), and murders a bunch of babies
Leftists: Well that’s what they get for existing where they were existing.
Yeah that’s exactly what they said…
If you’re supporting Hamas you are evil. I don’t have any interest in any nuance in this situation. They are terrorists that use human shields. There’s nothing you can say that makes that ok, full stop. You are one of the evil people if you agree with Hamas.
The thing is that you’re saying a bunch of people support Hamas when they obviously don’t.
https://www.btselem.org/topic/human_shields
Whoops. Would you call Israel terrorists too?
Oh well, you already said you have no interest in any nuance.
In that case, you should go to reddit worldnews and join the mob of bloodthirsty assholes asking to raze Gaza to ground.
The IDF is dropping white phosphorus on children’s hospitals, a blatant display of cruelty that makes no pretense of being necessary to fight Hamas. As evil as Hamas is, and I’m not downplaying that at all, the Israeli government is worse.
Most western countries feel and are guilty because they repeatedly killed and exiled Jews and promised them land as retribution that didn’t belong to them in the first place.
About 1/3 of the people living in Palestine were jewish at the time of the partitition. Are you saying the entirety of land should have been given to the muslims?
No. I think there is no fair solution as long as both groups demand it all should belong to them. They will both feel wronged. I am also pretty sure that pressure on the Jewish population would have increased there when Israel would not have been formed.
Ok, but then where does this lead us? Are the jews more wrong than the muslims in trying to kill the other one? Is anyone supporting either side more wrong than the other? Us on the sidelines can condemn the cruelty but at the core there’s no clear cut right and wrong like when Native Americans were wiped out by colonists…
In a better world maybe the UN would have enforced the partitition and after several generations shit would have cooled down. But that’s something that was impossible in '48
I hope you aren’t really asking me that lol. I have no idea. Apart from suggesting they should all just love each other and shake hands I don’t know what else could work.
But historically I think there is no example where a division of a country has worked out. Korea, Vietnam, Germany,… It was always a disaster.
And how would you even fairly split Jerusalem, for example?
Chechoslowakia?
Jerusalem was not to be split in the UN plan, but given a special status
A refreshing take for sure, and even though Bernie is Jewish he sees this cruel regime for what it really is. There are no excuses for harming innocent civilians, ever!
A lot of jewish actually call this out as a genocide, its just the world leader playing their politics while the people are getting murdered on the ground.
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Yes I’m aware. I also know many Israeli citizens condemn the actions of their government. I just think that as an American Jewish politician, Bernie has an incentive not to criticize the Israeli government but he still does, and that takes some courage.
Jews != Zionists
Problem is, at least where I live, the majority of the Jewish community fervently supports Israel.
There’s nuance required there… because there’s a wide gulf between fervently supporting the right of Israel to exist and supporting the actions of their government.
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I think it’s more pointing out how many politicians (and people in general), especially Republicans, who won’t criticize them, and even say criticizing them is anti-semitic. Him being Jewish means he has more cultural connection to them than they do, yet he still points it out. He also can’t reliably be called anti-semitic because he is a semite (at least the modern meaning of the word. I’m not sure if he speaks Hebrew or other Semitic languages).
This is exactly what I meant. I have no prejudice against Jewish people whatsoever, I’m simply admiring the balls it takes to be an American Jewish politician and taking a stance against the Israeli government. He’s risking losing a part of his supporters but he still stands for what’s right.
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It’s different because it’s Israel and Israel has a stranglehold over US politics.
There’s no way Bernie doesn’t speak Yiddish, I’d wager he spoke Hebrew at one point in his life.
Moreover, the idea that Israel somehow represents Jewish people as a whole is simply Israeli propaganda that promotes Israel’s interests at the expense of non-Israeli Jews.
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Add another troll to the block list
Religion has not done a lot of good in the world lately. Turns out the “my way or the highway” approach creates nothing but death and violence.
Religion, and British imperialism
The Roman empire’s spawn. Western imperialism and christianity/islam.
As a Brit I’m always shocked people focus on us so much. Like yeah we fucked up a lot of places and did awful things, but basically every country in Europe has committed atrocities that are as bad if not worse, like the French in Vietnam or Belgium in Africa, or mother fucking Spain basically wiping put the entire south American continent.
Most of the current day border conflicts are related to the past century’s British policy, both due to the extent of the British Empire and its little interest in preventing trouble in their way out. You see similar issues with French ex-colonies, but since they weren’t as many they don’t appear as much in the news. Border conflicts in old Spanish colonies mostly took place during the 19th century, and they’ve been independent for long enough for their current issues not to have as much to do with Spain anymore. In contrast, there are British people alive today who were kicking around when the victors of WWII decided to split Palestine in half without asking Palestinians for their opinion, and afterwards chose to ignore the ethnic cleansings of Palestinians.
In any case, you shouldn’t take of this personally, unless you actually hold any position of relative power.
You see similar issues with French ex-colonies, but since they weren’t as many they don’t appear as much in the news.
Or people aren’t as aware of them. E.g. notably their mandates in Syria and Lebanon after World War 1 where they intentionally stirred divisions on the basis of a theory of wanting to keep it so France as a mediator was needed in order to keep them stable. And then they fucked off and left chaos behind.
Fair enough. Also, English speaking people will be relatively less exposed to conversations in French, which should be more oriented towards French colonies than English colonies.
Palestinians were in fact asked for their opinion before the UN voted to split it in half…
There’s a shituation very comparable to Palestine happening today in Western Sahara. A former colony of Spain.
Palestinians were in fact asked for their opinion before the UN voted to split it in half…
Do you have a source for this?
There’s a shituation very comparable to Palestine happening today in Western Sahara. A former colony of Spain.
Fair enough. Spain had an UN mandate that ordered them to oversee the process of decolonization, and instead they just gave it up to Morocco against the wishes of the Saharawi people themselves. The contemporary attitude of both the US and Spain is disgusting in this issue.
If he’s referring to what I’m thinking about it was the Arab league that was asked. They said “no” and the UN said “we don’t care”
I replied to a post that claimed they weren’t asked for their opinion. Instead of working with the UN to decide on how the territory should be split they just said “we don’t care”. It’s like refusing to go to your divorce or custody hearing because you think it’ll be unfair
Their plan was to get the neighbouring countries to invade and capture the entire territory
Edit sorry client won’t post links
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine
While Jewish organizations collaborated with UNSCOP during the deliberations, the Palestinian Arab leadership boycotted it
So the majority of Palestinians just flat out refused to discuss splitting their country apart, just like it would happen everywhere. The way in which you presented facts is disturbingly misleading.
Three things: Scale, recency and contrition or perceived lack thereof.
The British Empire is the largest empire there has ever been. At its greatest extent, in 1920, it covered about 1/4 of the entire world, long after having lost many holdings like the US. The second largest, the Mongol Empire, reached almost the same size, but hundreds of years earlier.
In the same time period as the British, the Russian empire covered <20% in 1895, but its proportion of colonial lands to their own was much smaller than for the British Empire and the proportion of the current world population living in those areas is also much smaller. The French colonial empire covered less than 1/10th of the world at its peak in 1920, and was by far the other largest recent holding of colonies geographically and culturally outside of the immediate sphere of the holding country.
Spain is rarely brought up, I think, in large part because the Spanish empire reached its peak in the early 1800’s and so is “history”. Belgium doesn’t get discussed at much because 98% of their colonial holdings was Leopold II’s personal ownership of the Congo Free State. And then we get to the last bit: Contritition.
Nobody goes around saying the massive scale of gross abuse that happened under Leopold II’s rule of the Congo Free State was a good thing. Few people I’ve met ever defend France’s atrocities in Vietnam. Even the defence of their ownership of Algeria, which was special enough to trigger an attempted coup against Charles de Gaulle when he wanted to let it have independence because many saw it as part of France itself, is relatively muted.
But there’s still mainstream support for the British Empire in the UK. There are still people who insist the British Empire was awesome for the colonies that were exploited because they got English and rails and British legal systems and that somehow outweighs the mass murder and brutal exploitation and erasure of local cultures.
E.g. this survey from 2019, where 32% were proud of the British Empire, 37% were neutral, and only 19% considered it “more something to be ashamed of”. 32% were proud of their country’s history of colonialism and oppression. Critically this was significantly higher than for other colonial powers other than the Dutch. At the same time 33% thought it left the colonies better off vs. only 17% who thought they were worse off.
I’m not British, but I’ve lived in the UK for 23 years, and I’ve experienced this attitude firsthand from even relatively young British people (ok, so all of them have been Tories) - a refusal to accept that the fact that a substantial number of these former colonies had to take up arms to get rid of British rule might perhaps be a little bit of a hint that the colonial rule was resented and wrong.
No other modern empire has left behind such a substantial proportion of the world population living in countries that have either a historical identity tied up to rebelling against British rule, and/or have relatively recently rebelled against British rule, and/or still have substantial reminders, such as Commonwealth membership or the British monarch as their monarch. When a proportion of the British population then keeps insisting this was great, actually, there you have a big part of it.
We aren’t giving the others a pass, but this shitshow has a certain Etonian stench. It’s like the British Empire looked at Zionist and saw a shared colonial heart…
I think the general focus comes from the particular reach of the British empire controlling ~ a quarter of the world, but I agree every major power has done it
That said, in this particular conflict, it’s more about how right after WWII , around the time when the United nations was founded. The world powers knew they basically owned the world at this point with nuclear tech, but justified it by arguing they should use this power to preserve countries borders.
Around the same time when the world powers are saying this, land that Britain colonized in Palestine was given to create Israel. Which is hypocritical.
I can understand machiavellianism in the context of pre 1950 geopolitics, but there will never be peace because of the decision making of Western powers doing something they have acknowledged is unethical
1/4 yes, but also worth mentioning that today far more than 1/4 of the present-day population live in that quarter of the world that has a history of being under British rule in recent history.
Couple that with the UK population being far more likely to be proud of the empire, wish Britain still had an empire, and insist the colonies wee left better off for having been oppressed, the British Empire has a certain stench about it many of the others haven’t, or haven’t anymore because of either age, a greater willingness to admit it was a bad thing, or lack of scale.
Not to be an imperial apologist, but there was one colony that was actually better off under British rule and that was Hong Kong.
I think Hong Kong is the rare exception that’s at least possible to reasonably argue, since the alternative was never independence but being ruled by someone granting even fewer freedoms.
He or she just wanted to look smart, nevermind
No, it’s because you can trace at least some of this specific problem directly back to British imperial rule in the middle east.
Yes, they intentionally drew national boarders to split ethnic populations and ensure infighting amongst country.
The aim was to keep the region destabalized and unable to strike at their former oppressors.
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Traditionally, churches and other religious institutions, have been good at building community and programs that benefit the less fortunate among us. You know, the whole “love your neighbor as yourself” thing.
More and more, though, it has devolved into not much more than political extremism and often hateful rhetoric and even calls to physical violence.
I don’t think that is new. It’s true that it helps. But religions have always been involved in war. Up until 200 years ago the Pope was the most powerful person on the planet for at least 1000 years.
Right. Religious institutions have definitely never been all good.
Don’t forget the crusades.
religion has always been a cancer in society for weak minds to feel solace in their life
In all seriousness, community is the biggest benefit of religion, and the reason I’m ok with it existing in modern society. The idealized church (and these do still exist in smaller churches) is a safe place for people to come, not be judged, and find acceptance and support.
A friend of mine goes to a church like this, and honestly sometimes I’m jealous. I’m as atheist as they come in my personal beliefs, but hearing all the actually cool stuff they do to support their members is really cool. I don’t agree with their religion, but they’re practicing it right as far as I’m concerned.
Religion should absolutely be either personal or small community, though. As soon as you have states using it as justification for violence, that religion has stopped being useful or acceptable.
Agreed, it’s mostly community as far as personal benefits. We had a friend group through it that fell apart recently and my wife wants to go back to church only for the community.
Outreach is mostly a guise in my opinion, a show that’s put on to make the congregation think their money is being used wisely. I have a lot of disdain for organized religion though, having grown up in it and painfully “deconstructing” a couple years ago. I can’t step foot in a church ever again (minus a wedding).
Yeah, for sure there’s some scummy stuff churches can do with money. Again, that’s not EVERY church, and the bigger it gets, the more likely the preacher has a supercar. Some have actual accountability, and actually spend the money helping congregation, but it can take some looking to find them, and unfortunately they’re overshadowed by the Joel Olstein style mega churches.
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Pope hats are kinda cool.
It gives some people a lot of comfort.
Religion is a plague. It’s the reason we’re going to destroy ourselves. How many of the people who deny climate change (and every other batshit insane position taken by lunatics) are religious right-wingers? By far, most.
the communist elite in china don’t give AF about climate change and they’re nothing close to “right wing” or religious. you’re just cherry picking to make a (very weak) point.
It’s not religion, but it is strict adherence to an ideology and refusing to acknowledge facts that contradict the ideology or make it inconvenient
true, and in that sense the CCP is sort of like a religion
Religion or not, it sure would be nice if we could not killing civilians and not genocide.
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Shh, Bernie, corporate America might blacklist you from ever working for them.
I (a non-US) watched Hillary in a documentary about her saying Bernie has never worked (in corporate/professional settings) all his life. If that’s true, I don’t think it matters to him.
Yeah, you’re right. My comment was a weak attempt a humor.
I think that fact makes your joke even stronger.
it’s not weak actually. I don’t get it as don’t realize it’s a common knowledge there.
And a reference to the Harvard debacle, I’m guessing?
Egh, just some minor untrue propaganda. My bad.
It’s a joke. They are saying Bernie will never be a paid off tool of the corporations. Which he would never want to be anyway. And that’s why he lost the nomination.
Hillary is a very transparent corporate goon. She’s never done anything out of the currently accepted status quo. She’s entirely interested in what benefits her political career.
Bernie being on the right side of history as usual.
At least someone has common sense
I mean, Bernie Sanders always had that. That’s a good part of why people liked him.
See him arguing against various wars where he stood among few against the many and was so far right on these takes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_om-x323Em0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZo97nFS9GU
One of the comments under the videos puts it well:
For every wrong move america has made in the last 40 years, there is a video of Bernie arguing against it.
I’m glad to hear him break back away from the Dem establishment orthodoxy. He’s been mostly toeing the corporatist establishment line since Biden secured the nomination.
Though, maybe that means I need to get defederated now.
It’s genocide. It’s hate for hates sake. All for the benefit of a few rich old men.
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The Israeli far-right. To a lesser degree, the leaders of Hamas.
Bibi for sure. I doubt anyone is going to bring up corruption trials any time soon.
Not really, from what I read his approval rates dropped by more than 50%.
He’s considered by many Israelis as responsible for the whole situation.
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Defense contractors, for one. Gotta keep the war machine going.
Israel’s existence has been enough justification for the US to be involved in the affairs middle east for the last 80 years.
Who benefits from this crisis?
Russia. It gives them breath and cover at a time where the US is stymied against supporting Ukraine. Creates another thing for the media to “do” that isn’t covering Ukraine.
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Either Jews suck at genociding or you’re a dumbass.
In case you are just uneducated and not a troll:
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
So, yes, what Israel is doing is genocide.
It’s a very bad physical destruction when there’s now 5 times more than 60 years ago. When I destroy something whole or in part there’s usually less afterwards. See Jewish population in Europe before and after ww2.
So the medieval-style siege (only done 'in retaliation" ofc, as is tradition for Israel) does not intent to destroy the population in the Gaza Strip just because the bad sand people didn’t die yet? The definition clearly states that it’s about intent.
In any case, 45% of the population in Gaza is 14 years or younger, so the mental harm bit of the genocide definition also applies. What Israel is doing and did in the past centuries is horrific and that constant backup they get from the West has to stop.
For clarity, I’m not arguing that Hamas are the good guys, everyone knows they are jihadists that like to pretend they fight for their people but in reality only use them as shields. I argue that Israel is a nationalist, ultra-right state led by an insane nutcase that openly admits to be a proponent of zionism and unironically thinks Hitler got the idea for the Holocaust from a Palestinian Grand Mufti. Israel is not worthy of getting military support.
I’m not arguing for Israel being the good guy, just for genocide to be melodramatic. They treat them like enemies, which with a support of 60%+ for hamas which declared goal is to drive all Jews (not only the rightwing asshats) into the sea.
Hamas and many Palestinians celebrate the deaths of Jewish civilians. Since even before Israel existed there have been multiple attempts to bring all sides together. There were offers where Palestine would’ve been its own nation with the capital being in eastern Jerusalem. They refused every single time. You want intent? The clear intent of hamas is the extermination of every single Jew in the region without exception. Both sides are bad and the Israeli government is far from innocent. But I only see one group celebrating when civilians get killed. And I only see one group thinking the Holocaust didn’t go far enough.
I’m not arguing for Israel being the good guy, just for genocide to be melodramatic.
It’s not melodrama, it fits the UN definition of a genocide, but if you think “ethnic cleansing” is more appropriate, I’m willing to compromise.
They treat them like enemies, which with a support of 60%+ for hamas which declared goal is to drive all Jews (not only the rightwing asshats) into the sea.
Palestinians support Hamas not because of their ideals, but because they are the only one’s that pretend to fight for them. Israel’s kill count is orders of magnitude higher than Hamas’. How many Palestinians would vote for Hamas if there were fair, anonymous elections in Palestine is impossible to tell. You are extrapolating Hamas’ extremism to the general population and basing it on surveys from a prison camp.
Since even before Israel existed there have been multiple attempts to bring all sides together. There were offers where Palestine would’ve been its own nation with the capital being in eastern Jerusalem. They refused every single time.
True, because their Holy Scripture tells them it’s their land which is ironically the same reasoning Israel uses to stake a claim on the region.
The clear intent of hamas is the extermination of every single Jew in the region without exception.
Yes, and the clear intent of Israel is to exterminate every single Palestinian. That’s why they are huddled up in Gaza and the West Bank, guarded by the IDF. They are not allowed to enter Israel and Egypt refuses to let them enter their territory as well.
And I only see one group thinking the Holocaust didn’t go far enough.
The only group I see thinking the Holocaust didn’t go far enough is the West by continuing to give military support to Israel so they can continue with theirs.
Hamas and many Palestinians celebrate the deaths of Jewish civilians.
But I only see one group celebrating when civilians get killed
I’m gonna address this last because those are loaded points, but they seem very important for your opinion on the conflict.
Palestinians live in a world, devoid of any hope or future. They have no way of sustaining themselves, they have no way to escape, they have no way to fulfill what they think is their destiny (living under their God in Palestine). Israel on the other hand got their destiny with wide support from predominantly the US and the UK, but also the Western world as a whole.
I understand and empathize with the desperation of the Palestinian civilians and cheering on the deaths of your obvious enemy is not something exclusive to them, I’ve seen that happening many times, even from more privileged positions. What I mean by this is that US citizens cheer for their military successes, so do their opponent. People even do that by proxy in conflicts they have no personal interest in. At this point, I would just call it a human trait when being confronted with a shit situation, the deep end of the human soul so to speak.
The extermination of Palestinians clearly isn’t their goal. Allowing the population of Palestinians to grow from 1 million to 5 million would otherwise look pretty foolish.
But why is Egypt refusing to let them in? Maybe because they don’t want to deal with Hamas either?
A population growing to 5 times the size it was before clearly does not fit the definition of genocide. Am I agreeing with how Palestinians are treated? No. But calling it a genocide when the population has been growing and growing is ridiculous.
The comment about the west I’ll ignore because it makes you look like a tanky.
You do know that this same argument is used by holocaust deniers, right?
Then holocaust deniers can’t read stats. As it took the Jewish population in Germany until 2018 to grow back to 1/5 of what it was in 1933.
Is the Israeli government being dickheads about Gaza? Definitely. But calling it a genocide seems melodramatic seeing as there’s now 5 times the amount of people there was 60 years ago.
And honestly, if what being done in Gaza qualifies as genocide, where’s the hate for Egypt? They keep the border closed too. But for some reason only Israel gets blamed. Why isn’t Egypt stepping up supplying aid?
And honestly, if what being done in Gaza qualifies as genocide, where’s the hate for Egypt? They keep the border closed too. But for some reason only Israel gets blamed. Why isn’t Egypt stepping up supplying aid?
And get targeted by USrael?
Because they seemed to care about that during any of the wars they fought against Israel.
The real reason (according to everything I found) Egypt keeps the border closed is because they don’t seem to want to deal with Hamas and not because Israel is telling them to.
You joking mate?
I just got done watching PBS News hour Brooks and Capehart segment and, wow… Talk about completely one-sided. As though viewing this event in isolation without recognition to the broader historical context. Basically drooling over Netanyahu.
When will people learn that radicalization doesn’t just manifest out of thin air…?
exactly. israel has been killing palestinian as for decades. because they want their land. bibi is taking israeli citizens down a dark, dark road. if israel had treated the palestinians as full humans with the same rights as themselves, hamas wouldn’t even exist.
I just got done watching PBS News hour Brooks and Capehart segment and, wow… Talk about completely one-sided.
I just watched it myself, and didn’t see that.
How was it one-sided, in your opinion?
Did either of them give historical context to why Palestinians are blaming Israel and not Hamas in this instance? Did either of them address the creeping territorial seizure of Arab land? Did they give any mourning to the many more Palestinian civilian deaths both in this acute conflict, or in the past decades? (reminder there has been roughly 10x the number of Palestinian civilian deaths from Israeli forces than there has Israelis by Palestinian groups).
The way they spoke made it seem like this attack just manifested out of thin-air and that Israel is innocent.
That neither Capehart nor Brooks who raised their own race/ethnicity could relate to confining people into slums and ghettos, and imposing economic blockades as they victim-blame them for the number of civilian deaths is to me as shocking as it is ironic.
It’s called “Manufactured Consent”
There’s so much emotion in your response that I’m lothe to reply, but at the very least, did you honestly expect them to have to hash out the whole history of the region every time they’re on air?
At some point I think it’s okay to assume that people know the basics of what happened before, and that they’re discussing the latest events that are going on.
Frankly, I see more emotion in your reply.
I’m just eating breakfast, but I guess emotion is in the eye of the beholder.
to briefly outline the full picture would take five minutes, maybe ten. just an yes, it’s perfectly realistic. i’d say most of the viewers have only a hazy idea of the origins, if that.theres no reason to skip a brief history of this. zero.
to briefly outline the full picture would take five minutes
Their segment on the show is ten minutes already, without the exposition that you want. You’re not being realistic.
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And yet, you replied.
If a law carries no punishment, is it even a law?
Seems like more a set of guidelines that people are free to ignore whenever it suits them.
It’s unclear.
Hamas clearly and obviously committed crimes against humanity (intentionally murdering civilians, raping, torturing and kidnapping).
Israel, so far, is playing in the gray areas. It’s legal, according to international law, to lay siege on a population as long as it has a definitive and declared military purpose. It’s illegal to do it to intentionally harm civilians or to intentionally starve them.
The main problem is that Hamas is using the Palestinians and hides amongst them. That makes the legal discussion very difficult because Israel can always say that they target Hamas and everything else is just collateral damage.
Unfortunately the Palestinians are getting f’ed from both sides here.
I’m pretty sure cutting of food and water to an entire population is no gray area, it’s pretty unambiguously a warcrime.
it’s pretty unambiguously a warcrime
Also noteworthy: US law requires countries receiving US military aid to not have a consistent pattern of violating human rights, etc. And yet, the US doesn’t even follow US law on that
US lawmakers have a tendency to exempt themselves from the laws they pass.
Clearly.
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so israel is obligated to keep providing vital supplies to the terrorists murdering them? Maybe instead of buying rockets they should have worked on their infrastructure.
Cutting off is different from providing.
Also, let’s call what Israel is doing in Gaza what it is: genocide.
If Israel wants to keep occupying an area, yes they do have the responsibility to keep supplying vital supplies to Gaza. Even if some of them would be terrorists. And while some of them could be called terrorists, you do not have permission to deliberately cause harm to everyone in largish area.
You being attacked does not allow you to commit war crimes, genocide or ethnic cleansing. This is not a grey area.
You being attacked does not allow you to commit war crimes, genocide or ethnic cleansing. This is not a grey area.
If someone was about to kill you, and they’re hiding behind another person, and the only way you could stop them from killing you would be putting the third person at risk of being killed as well, do you have the right to defend yourself?
That’s basically the point, on a macro level, that we are all arguing about.
if someone was about to kill you, you would know who they were. you wouldn’t be killing random bystanders.
No, the third party can be a stranger who just gets caught up in the middle of it, who becomes the shield against their will.
There is another question on a micro level. How many people who are not about to kill you can you kill in self-defence to save how many people?
While in theory, every human life is as important and valued as another we do often in practice allow some movement morally.
The third question is immediacy. Are you allowed to kill someone in self-defence if you know they will kill you tomorrow? Is it just current action, and how far current stretches.
But while those are simplified questions on the philosophy of ethics in these situations they don’t entirely apply to Israel and Palestine. That is because they ignore the power imbalance.
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Something already got wrong in your logic chain if you came up with something like “well maybe if I need to kill 1001 citizens the terrorist is hiding behind in order to save my 1000 citizens, maybe better not do anything and let him kill my citizens”.
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Immediacy is simple in this case. We all know that if Palestinians do not attack Israel then Israel will not attack Palestinians. And we all know that no matter what, Palestinians are going to continue their unprovoked attacks. This means whoever comes up with “let’s attack first because otherwise we’ll get attacked” must be Palestinian, and a lying one.
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Are you seriously trying to argue that hamas is hiding behind 2 million civilians in Gaza, and that there were now thousands of valid military targets? Natalie Bennet couldn’t even answer a simple question a BBC interviewer posed to him about their consideration of the lives of innocent babies. Couldn’t even answer a simple question. This man is supposed to be one of the leaders of the nation.
Are you seriously trying to argue that hamas is hiding behind 2 million civilians in Gaza,
Its been widly reported that the Palestinians are being used by Hamas as human shields.
and that there were now thousands of valid military targets?
No. I was just stating the problem, not offering a solution. Its a very real dilemma.
What do you do, when your enemy is behind an innocent person who is being used as a shield.
Maybe Israel should abide by even one of the treaties they signed.
Gaza has worked on its infrastructure and now Israel destroyed it all again. Hmmm…
Its not a gray area. Killing civilians is wrong. It does nothing to counter hamas. It is not productive towards rescuing the hostages. Its not a well thought out or considered strategy that follow even the logic of war. It is just a cruel and broken reaction to terrorism. One atrocity in return the other. The point if government and leadership is to not behave like this. Jews whose famiues bear the the scars of the holocaust, myself included, know this better than anyone.
The main problem is that Hamas is using the Palestinians and hides amongst them
Why do you think Hamas has not been able to “resolve” this issue?
Even when international powers would force the place into two countries the fighting will never stop. Because both don’t have a country and want one and both ground their claim on religion. The religions are incompatible. Hamas consider Jews as the enemy of Allah quite literally.
Jews were pushed out of countries and killed and therefore promised land. So land was simply taken from a torn place that couldn’t protect itself. Palestinians are also pushed out of countries and killed and want their land back. The Brits just left them with this conflict because they couldn’t handle it. And now probably no one will be able to stop Israel anymore because they were given the better hand in terms of weapons.
Asking either side to stop won’t work. Ban religion instead. They could both live there.
Before 1943, both Muslims and Jews lived in Palestine in peace, but as immigration increased, so did tension. It wasn’t about religion, it was about land.
There were plenty of Jewish leagues, sports, ect, called the Palestinian Jewish (league name).
“In peace”
Not really. There has been conflict between the two groups since pretty much the day the first Jewish immigrants/settlers arrived in the 1800’s. The first recorded violent action was in 1882 when an Arab was shot at a wedding by a Jew so a bunch of Arabs started a small riot vandalising Jewish property. And since there has been so many riots and shooting and checks notes mule thefts, done as retaliation to retaliation to retaliations.
That’s actually not true. There’s a book called Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappe. Look it up, there’s a chapter precisely about that. He brought the receipts.
Which part?
In peace part. There’s a lot of documents showing that the first wave of Jews coming to Palestine lived in peace with Palestinians, also a lot of them working together and forming trade unions together which was a problem for Jewish elite. It’s presented in the book.
One incident on a certain date doesn’t mean there’s conflict between groups. There were plenty of jewish and muslim neighbours helping/hiding eachother when extremists started trying to bully/kill the other group from villages. Living together in peace requires both groups to defeat their extremists
True. The three western religions have been at war with each other since they were created.
I guess the thing we can all agree on here was the arrogant stupidity of Great Britain.
The Brits just left when they saw they couldn’t handle the conflict. I wonder why humans again and again try this concept of “let’s just devide the place and protect the borders!”. I don’t think it ever worked, instead we have multiple examples of how it makes people suffer and has long lasting negative consequences.
To be fair, most divisions took place around WW2, so perhaps it was just a beloved but dumb idea at that time…
“In peace”
Not really.
You know Palestinian Jews exist, right? Like, not Jews who immigrated from America or Europe, like… Arab Jews.
Didn’t immigration to Israel increase due to persecution of Jewish people? So if there was no Christ / bible leading to Judaism separating from Christianity, we wouldn’t have the resulting anti-semitism that caused Jewish people to return to their biblical homeland and displace the indigenous Palestinians. Honest inquiry.
I think so, too. With no religion, anti-Semitism could probably not exist. Although, it isn’t purely a religious group but also an ethnicity.
Jewish people are native to the place Palestine/Israel as well, btw. Even when you leave out the religious claim going back to Abraham, there are multiple archeological and genetic findings that confirm Jewish people have lived there already thousands of years ago.
The only reason being jewish has an ethnic component is, of course, religious. Who else cares which parti-fucking-ticular tribe their ancestors belonged to 2.500 years ago
Jews lived in Arab and Muslim countries as second-class citizens at best. There are also many Palestines in Israel living there, doing sports, allowed to vote, etc. But somehow in that case it’s not okay.
Almost as if it’s okay to treat Jewish people as lesser, but not Muslims.
The whole fights and anger about the city Jerusalem is driven by religion, as well.
Even when Palestinians could live in Israel as first class citizens they reject it because they are anti-zionist. Which is a religious standpoint, even when Zionism itself is of course also a religious standpoint.
Please read this for example, which I think makes a very good point on how religion drives the conflicts:
So land was simply taken from a torn place that couldn’t protect itself.
I mostly agree, but ‘taken’ is somewhat reductive, it was more like a forced partition. Jews already lived there and were already emigrating there en masse long before the end of WWII, Zionism ramped up in the late 1800’s, 60 years before the Jewish state. There was already violence in that area through a lot of early Zionism and a civil war in the few years leading up to partition.
It would be like if the UK decided tomorrow to give 35% of the US to Hispanic Americans despite them only being ~20% of the population, it just a weird way to split up a country that is bound to cause conflict. (Jews were 30% of the population of Israel/Palestine when it was split in half) No one actually expected Israel to survive the wars at the start, as you said they just wanted to push the ‘problem’ onto someone else. If you’re a displaced population what do you do if no one wants to take you and your under threat of death most places you go? It’s important to remember that Jews were pretty much universally hated everywhere in the world prior to WWII, they didn’t have many prospects for peace.
I suspect however that if partition never happened, there would still be ethnic conflict in that area and it would have just shifted who was the oppressed group. Which really highlights the real problem as you implied, the inability for many religious communities to live side by side. Look at India, Nigeria, Ireland, etc. Whenever you have 2 prominent religions in large enough numbers living closely together their fanaticism often doesn’t allow a shared sense of national unity. Banning religion is a great way to make religion popular again though, not the best way to get rid of it. A secular education is the best way to get rid of religion.
Thank you, I looked into it and found a lot of interesting research about the people who lived in that area in the past. I agree that both groups of people are native to the place.
It’s interesting how the narrative of Jews being invaders or even colonizers of the place is prevalent in social media, on biased websites and sometimes even the news.
I guess people really like that idea because it makes the whole issue more easy black-and-white.
Oh yes of course banning religion is the obvious answer that will lead to harmony. Even in your magical world where religion doesn’t exist this conflict would then be on racial lines.
Exactly, people use religion to justify acts that would otherwise be seen as irrational and inhumane. But with religion out of the picture, people will still commit the same atrocities and just try to find other ideologies as justification, such as racism.
To be fair, extremism flourishes when conditions are bad. Hamas is potentially a product of these conditions, or at least partially. If both peoples would be afforded better conditions, they might seem less incompatible than the two groups seem at the moment.
About time the Palestian issue is put back on the agenda. Strangely enough, Israel is doing everything they can it seems to make that happen.
There’s a Chris Hedges - Sam Harris debate on YouTube you can watch in which Hedges brilliantly argues that desperate economic conditions actually lead people to turn to religious fanaticism as opposed to Sam Harris who argued that religion is fanaticism in itself.
Then people should extend the same excuse to the Jewish people as well, who ended up in and with Israel because they faced genocide and exile multiple times in their history around the globe. From Arabs and Muslims as well, btw.
That would make sense if Israelis today lived in economic desperation which they don’t. Go watch the debate, it’s very interesting.
Almost like you got this out of Chris Hitchens mouth.
I don’t like religion either. But, I don’t agree with banning religion. Banning something only give reason for martyrdom. It is too naive, to say that the Israel-Palestina conflict would be gone if both of them turned atheists. Too much bad blood between them. Instead it would need a long process to fight for peace. Short term cease fire, making them to have a long one. Stop giving Israel too much privilege and upperhand by giving them more advanced weapons. Reeducate the people! Honest education is one of the best solution against religion. And we might have a chance to have a peace there in the long future. The conflict wouldn’t be resolved in the next couple of years, I believe it would take decades.
The western block has to stop giving weapons to Israel and stop supporting Israel blindly. What they did there, has to be condemned also.
When Israel wouldn’t have weapons, Hamas would kill them an probably other Palestine groups as well because they see Jewish people as the enemy of Allah and do not want to share the land with them, they want to kill or exile all Jews in the area.
I think if you were able to pull the religious component out the conflict would be solved very quickly. Control over religious hotspots? Gone. Scripture telling everyone they are god’s chosen and need to oppose the non-believers? Gone. Outside influence and money supporting ‘their’ extremists? Gone. Israeli settlers thinking it’s their religious job to retake their holy land? Gone.
This conflict is entirely rooted in religion
and both ground their claim on religion.
No. Sorry, but this is bullshit.
Palestinians lived in Palestine before any Zionists came, and they lived with Palestinian Jews and Christians. They don’t demand the land because of “religion”… they demand their land, country, identity, and dignity back.
Big fucking difference. And honestly, it reflects poor knowledge about Palestinians and Palestinian history on your part.
The reason why Palestinian groups like Hamas want the land completely for themselves is religious. They claim that Palestine is only really theirs when it’s “pure Muslim”. You can read this in the charta of the Hamas and also in the quotes of their leaders.
How is that not based on religion? Jews were living there before as well and many Palestines want them completely gone because they are Jews.
I am talking about Palestinians not Hamas. My words were clear up there.
This equating of Hamas and Palestinians is pretty lame imo.
But equating Israelis with the Israelian military is fine?
Could you point to where I did that?
This is a quote from you:
Israel has killed full Palestinian families in Gaza. This isn’t people “caught in the crossfire”. This is Israel bringing the crossfire to their beds and homes. This is Israel’s continuing ethnic cleansing.
I am still waiting for the part where I equated Israelis with the Israeli govt and forces… How much longer do I need to wait until you read that paragraph again and realize you were wrong?
I will ask you again which part in this is the one where I equate the Israeli government with Israeli civilians.
Thanks.
Israel is a country and the state has killed full families. Reading comprehension is a good skill to have, maybe brush up.
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All religions are poisonous.
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Which religion isn’t poisonous?
The flying spaghetti monster perhaps
Praise his name. Ramen.
How come nobody is mentioning how President George Bush is the guy who fucked up Gaza?
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-day-that-bush-took-gaza/
The Day That Bush Took Gaza
April 25, 2004
President Bush’s embrace of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan for unilateral Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip is going to turn out to be more than a mere gesture. Sharon’s radical initiative would evacuate all Israeli settlements and military positions, unilaterally, within the next 18 months…de facto responsibility for what happens in Gaza once Israel withdraws will fall to the United States. That’s the hidden meaning in the president’s letter of assurance to Sharon saying that the United States will lead an international effort to build the capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism and prevent the areas from which Israel withdraws from posing a threat.
One wonders whether Bush really appreciates what he is getting himself and the United States into. Having trumpeted his support for an independent Palestinian state, he is now taking on responsibility for ensuring that the Gaza mini-state created by Israel’s withdrawal does not turn into a failed terrorist state.
I don’t agree with this guy’s hot take on things. He’s arguing that because Bush supported the Israeli Prime Minister’s idea of pulling out of Gaza, Bush is somehow taking full responsibility for Palestine and has all the blame for Hamas winning the majority vote in Gaza in 2007.
Sharon was going to let the Palestinian Authority (who rules the west bank) run Gaza. Bush is the guy who pushed for democratic elections. That’s why he’s the one who is most responsible. Of course the Gaza residents over 40 who voted for Hamas (perhaps around 20% of the current population) also share the blame. This is also something the news media doesn’t talk about. The Gaza civilians voted Hamas into power.
The Gaza civilians voted Hamas into power.
Still civilians though. And, not all of them did. All in all it’s madness to equate the entire Gaza population with the perpetrators the way that Israel is currently doing.
What was the voting age at the time of that election in Gaza? I’ve heard that the average age of Palestinians is 18, although that might only be a recent statistic. If the voting age of that population is so young, you might imagine the ignorance that population would have towards issues, or the potential that population might have for manipulation.
Did that 2007 election take place like US ones, where only like 2/3rds of people even vote at all?
Questions like this really make you wonder if it was even possible for the election results that put Hamas into power to be representative of the general population.
So, all of this is to say that I agree with you.
I wrote this on Reddit to argue against someone who suggested that Israel’s response is justified, given that Hamas won an election. Here’s what I responded:
There are several significant issues with your reasoning:
- Voting has never implied being responsible for the crimes of your government.
- There have not been elections since 2006. The Gaza Strip does not have a democratic system. This further challenges the argument that the population should pay some kind of price.
- Hamas won the elections by taking 74 of the 132 seats in parliament. This means that 60 seats were for non-hamas participants of these elections. Consequently, many people who are trapped in Gaza and want nothing to do with Hamas are being punished/killed.
- About 50% of the Gaza population is under 15 years of age. Attacking Gaza in this way should never have been on the table given these demographics.
In other words, the average voting age isn’t too relevant.
Right, because voting doesn’t matter. Got it.
Sorry maybe I sounded a bit harsh. I think we’re on line here, but to be sure. I mean that the average voting age in 2006 could be an interesting detail when doing an analysis of the origins the current situation. So would other themes that played a role in the campaign before the election. I remember reading about this that the corruption of the alternative parties was an issue for voters too.
But when it comes to justifying huge numbers of civilian casualties, it’s a pretty well established principle that civilians can never directly be held accountable with violence for the actions of their government. So that means that we don’t need to engage with arguments about whether voters knew what they were getting into or any specifics about the election. Because doing so would be giving in to your opponent (in a hypothetical debate) and you’d be undermining your own position.
Maybe my points have the same problem. But since people who support the bombings don’t seem to care about international law, I felt like these were a good second line of defence.
How come nobody is mentioning how President George Bush is the guy who fucked up Gaza?
Maybe because it’s a bit of a stretch
It’s not a stretch. It was Bush’s idea to hold democratic elections in Gaza, instead of turning Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority. Yes it was a noble idea, but it showed how Bush was incompetent on foreign matters. Bush also let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora when he refused to order the thousands of nearby US soldiers to go get him.
This all goes to show how incredibly important it is to have a US president who is competent. Bush would probably argue that he was just trying to do the right thing in pushing for democracy. And I’m not saying Bush is the only person responsible. But every time another building in Gaza is destroyed by bombing, that happened because Bush made the wrong call while he was in charge.
Do you have visions of Bin Laden legging it from Tora Bora when you see a building in Gaza being leveled?
Gaza was fucked way backed in 1948 by the UN and especially the UK. What follows were 75 years of genocide/terrorism.
It’s too on the nose when religions claim they are coming in the name of peace yet they continue to leave a bloody trail. Yes, I condemn Hamas just as much as I condemn the killing of innocent Palestinians in the name of religion.
Innocent Palestinians are being killed by an ethno state so let’s make sure we call it what it is. It’s colonial sentiments and Jewish supremacy that are behind this.
Is it in the name of religion? How so?
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Fuck him; call things by their names, GENOCIDE.
I guess Israel had enough of Hamas’ shit.
War crimes are war crimes even if you feel like you have a good reason (hint: there’s no good reason to cut off the watersupply to an entire population.)
Best get to releasing those prisoners then.
Or maybe let the Palestinians take care of their own security because it seems the only palestinians with guns do so illegally and fall in with Hamas. How do we expect a peace treaty work otherwise? Do we expect to make sociopaths like Hamas docile with peace?
That’s just it. Hamas does not want peace with Israel. They want to see 100% total eradication of the Israeli state. There is no reasoning with extremists. I’m surprised so many people here are pro-Hamas.
