I don't expect anything of you but I think one day Hanover is going to wake up and have a serious D'Oh! moment over that comment.

Not causing massive death is indeed a good goal and I'd agree with that. — schopenhauer1

Ok, we do agree on something at least. :up:

Just take the UN off the table :lol: . The UN represents world opinion, you know, the whole world. But let's just take that off the table because the whole world wants Israel to stop committing war crimes. No, you don't get to dismiss the entire world (which have condemned Hamas btw.) because you don't like what they have to say.

Which is why I brought up WW2 and Britain fighting German and not being only defensive. Was that legitimate, yes or no? As I stated previously: — schopenhauer1

Of course it was legitimate. Germany had probably the most powerful military in the world and could easily have defeated and subjugated Britain. It's mind boggling that you think you are making any kind of relevant point here.

In theory, I agree. If Israel can make Hamas stand down and not kill civilians, that would make total sense. After what they did, and so close to it, the fact that you think Hamas should just be invited for a handshake and a side-eye and what, a "noogie", "Eh, you got us!.. You guys..", that's just insane to me. — schopenhauer1

What's insane is that you on the one hand claim to be against killing civilians but think my idea that Israel stop killing massive amounts of civilians is insane. The other stuff you wrote is a frankly idiotic strawman. Are the only two choices you can think of here 1) destroy an entire city of 1.5 million people committing multiple war crimes in the process 2) invite your enemy for a handshake and a side eye? Did I anywhere suggest those were the only two options? Or have you decided to join the kindergartners again? You get one more chance and then you don't get any more of my time.

To be clear, in case I'm misinterpreted again. I think certain cultures are better than others. I think Swedish culture is better than Saudi Arabian culture, Thai culture is better than North Korean culture etc. But I don't accept a sweeping Western superiority and I definitely don't accept a sweeping Western superiority as a cover for war crimes.

Just curious. Do you think that despite the terror nature of the groups, there is a fundamental difference in Hamas versus the IRA, mainly concerning the intensity of actions the points at which they would stand down versus perpetually continue, and thus the circumstances aren't apples to apples? — schopenhauer1

The IRA blew up pubs full of off-duty soldiers and civilians, killed old folks at a remembrance parade and bombed the entire British cabinet in a Brighton hotel. There is no "fundamental" difference in intensity between that and what Hamas does with suicide bombings, rocket attacks, or the massacre of innocent concert goers. But the point won't be illluminated by quibbles over divergences in the tactics of the IRA and Hamas or their ideologies. It's the cultural, racial, and geographical closeness of Britain and Ireland and the political sway of Ireland in the U.S. that made it impossible for the British to use massive indiscriminate force and collective punishment against the Irish. That is what dictated they be civilized. Whether, for example, the IRA would have ever stood down is irrelevant to this dynamic.

So we need to wake up, be honest with ourselves, and recognize that the current level of destruction of the Palestinian population, including civilian life and infrastructure, is an option (for we "civilized" Westerners) not simply due to the nature of Hamas but because the Palestinians are poor and lacking powerful allies and because they diverge from us ethnically and culturally, so they can more easily be dismissed as expendable. @Hanover's speech on the superiority of all things Western illustrates this well. Of course, what's really uncivilized is this othering that sets ethical arguments on different planes according to such an artificial, albeit convenient (for us), dichotomy.

Also, a tangential but Irish-related question. Strategically, Ireland didn't enter WW2 because they were not fans of Britain and remained somewhat neutral (with some help at various times to Allies). Was that the right decision simply because Ireland's hands were "clean" of being involved in a war? If Britain remained defensive only and did not attack German positions, would they have been the "better" for it? — schopenhauer1

Ireland stayed neutral for political not moral reasons. I'm not sure what the moral thing to do was given the information available at the time and Ireland's military weakness. But the mere fact that I'm Irish makes zero difference to how I would analyse it.

The fear isn't invented, at least not for the raped women and burned babies. Are you suggesting the only way to lose is by complete takeover? — Hanover

You've moved the goalposts here. The fear of Israel being destroyed by Hamas is invented. The fear that Hamas will unjustifiably attack and kill innocent Israelis is not invented, just as the fear of Palestinian civilians that the IDF will unjustifiably attack and kill them is not invented. So, what I'm suggesting is that, for a start and at a minimum, Israel stops committing war crimes. I would also contend that their current actions could no more be a defence of civilized values than smashing someone in the face with a hammer could be a defence of kindness. Shooting people carrying white flags is not civilized. Bombing people on routes you told them to go to because they were safe is not civilized. Israel, whatever the proposed justifications for its actions, is not currently defending civilized values, which is why every civilized country in the world bar the U.S. wants them to stop doing what they are doing.

My position is that Hamas set this in motion, — Hanover

Yes, Hamas did set the current set of hostilities (but not the hostilities in general) in motion. I have described that as a combination of strategic idiocy and murderousness, which you can take to mean I also hold them responsible for what's happening to their own people. That doesn't absolve Israel of agency though. The IRA once bombed the entire British cabinet almost killing the Prime Minister. Britain had a right to defend itself and could have bombed Derry and probably have killed many IRA operatives, including the commander Martin McGuinness, but they chose not to because the killing of innocent civilians and even the extra-judicial killing of an IRA commander was considered unacceptable to a civilised country. What they did instead was to open unpublicized background communication channels with the group and appeal to more moderate elements in the nationalist community to get the IRA to stop. Which worked. Contrast this to Israel which decided to fund Hamas as part of a divide and conquer strategy against the Palestinians to prevent the only possible solution (two state) to the conflict. If Britain had chosen to fund the IRA to prevent any possible peaceful solution and followed Israel's path of escalation, the whole island of Ireland would have joined a war against them and we would have a similar disaster to the current situation in Israel/Palestine. So, Israel is not and has no right to call itself civilized simply because it is fighting against an uncivilized opponent. It is not and has not shown itself to be interested in peace or a civilized solution to the conflict. Just the opposite. And that Hamas is bad, evil, uncivilized, etc does not change that fact one iota.

Agree. What I'm primarily against is the escalation of violence by whatever side does it. Both sides seem too willing to go to the extremes and I see no end in sight.

It's an impossibility for Hamas to militarily defeat Israel, a nuclear state backed up by the U.S. Talk about an invented fear. Are you also worried about Honduras taking over California? Should we go in and bomb just in case? It's absurd. The only existential threat is to the Palestinians. They're the ones who just had their city of 1.5 million people destroyed and you're telling me the danger is Israelis being ethnically cleansed? Again, come on... And I'm not a fan of, say, Iran as a society either. But so what? If I don't want to wipe them from the earth militarily, is that supposed to indicate some guilt complex about being Western?

So, I think number one, lay off the John Wayne movies and Rudyard Kipling books. Two, my personal values are superior to plenty of people, including you, where we differ imo. I have no problem saying that. It has nothing to do with whether I'm Western or not. We're not some monolithic group. I mean isn't that in itself something of a Western value that we understand we don't all share the same values? Finally, I'll have some of what you're drinking today. It's been fun.

It's almost like making excuses for war crimes and then claiming our values are superior because we're Western would make us sound like some opium-addled Victorian grandpa who really deserves some kick ass satirising to drag him from his stupor...

It's not possible to justify killling thousands of children if one of the ways we're superior is that we don't kill thousands of children to impose our superior values. There is a difference between imposing and defending. — Hanover

Have you considered the options for defending the value of civility that don't involve bombing schools and designated safe routes, shooting white flag carriers, and pulling the plug on newborn babies in incubators? Because those things don't seem all that civil. It's almost like they're the opposite of civility... It's almost like war crimes do not constitute superior values but are barbaric and something we should be against. Right?

This a caricature of your opponent's position — Hanover

Satire to be exact and much deserved.

That is the purpose of terrorism, to destablize, to ruin, and evoke fear. — Hanover

And Israel is doing a very comprehensive job at this. Who's more destabilized, ruined, and fearful? Over a million Gazans, most of them children, with inadequate food, water, and shelter, being bombed daily including on routes Israel is telling them are safe, knowing that even white flags can't save them from being designated legitimate targets or the 99% of Israeli citizens suffering no such deprivations? Honestly, I feel like you constantly make arguments that undermine your own position and I can't make sense of why you don't see that. You've inadvertently justified Hamas's attacks with your right to defend argument combined with your justifications for killing civilians and now you've demonstrated that the IDF are no less deserving of the label "terrorists" than Hamas. If you would just remove yourself from the situation and see it as group A vs group B and focus on the actions of each, I think you could come up with a coherent position but you won't do that. Everything is coloured with the fact that you will support Israel no matter what. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that.

Anyway, yes, I can agree that a Hamas government would be awful but probably no worse than, say, Saudi Arabia which is a country that is protected and coddled by the U.S. because... oil.

And this:

The point here is that equality is not a wedding vow, and it is worth admitting that we (meaning the West and its values) are superior to others, in terms of morality, technology, civility, and in every way possible. To the extent you accept or reject this notion of exceptionalism will likely color your view on how aggressively you defend those values versus how aggressively you declare it imperialistic and try to quash it. — Hanover

has me scratching my head. Really, you need to read this again, consider the implications, and potentially rephrase it so you don't sound like some Victorian "white man's burden" carrier. Otherwise, be prepared to get your ass satired off. I mean, dude...

More good stuff from Haaretz. Sorry, full articles behind pay wall but it's worth noting there are plenty of moderate and sensible voices within Israel who don't tow the government line even in a time of war.

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-12-18/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israel-killed-thousands-of-children-in-gaza-how-can-so-many-israelis-remain-indifferent/0000018c-788c-d55c-a7cc-fb8edb100000

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-19/ty-article/.premium/dont-let-bibis-bluff-fool-you-israel-is-heading-toward-full-reoccupation-of-gaza/0000018c-7e2f-de44-a9be-7fbfafef0000

Anyway, Hamas's unique combination of strategic idiocy and murderousness combined with Israel's opportunism and utter lack of restraint = the end of Gaza. Seems the Israelis feel they won't get this chance again and I can't see them letting it slip away.

It is, of course, but not for Israel. It's been informative who here has kept defending this insanity. God save their souls. — Benkei

This is the worst of the gaslighting. That these Hamas militants with their tiny rockets, rifles, and hang gliders are a real military threat (even an existential one!) to a nuclear powered proxy of the world's superpower that will only accept their complete subjugation or displacement and actually has the means to achieve that. Analagous to Trump claiming the election is stolen while trying to steal it himself.

You can conceptualise a sculpture by the rock it's formed of or by the empty space chiselled out to make it. Either way you have a structure. So, there's a sense, yes, that words are empty but they are the emptiness that allows for the structure we call "meaning". They're nothing and everything at the same time. The way to resolve this then is not to look at form, which may lead to paradox, but process. Not what they are, but how they function. And they do function...

The way I interpret the story is as a commentary on the dynamics of society in general, not as seriously presenting the ostensible ethical dilemma (though that’s the obvious conceit that draws us in). So, in order for society to function, what is sacrificed is the sense of wonder and imagination of the child substituted over time by a conceptual scheme of relationships that impose a set of more or less instrumental values that define what it is to be happy and successful and direct behaviour along clearly delineated paths which aim to make individuals in some sense superfluous. The “inner child” must be continuously tortured for people to be “happy” in so far as those people are integrated properly into an efficiently functioning whole and the more properly integrated they are, the more ideal and well-oiled the society is, the more the child must be continuously neglected, tortured and beaten, up, i.e. the more the imaginative faculties and the freedom they threaten any established order with are repressed and degraded. So, there’s a certain moral perfection to a society where no one goes astray, where there is no crime, people cooperate fully etc., but the emptiness of this social morality is highlighted by the cost necessary to achieve it.

My first intervention on this recent iteration of this thread was to call Hamas butchers and animals. But of course the strategy of you and other weak-minded fools on here is to try to smear any criticism of Israel with support for Hamas no matter how clear the condemnation of that group. It's so insipid and pathetic, I can't imagine it working on anyone with any degree of intelligence. That you can is all your problem. You've proven yourself to be entirely out of your depth here.

Israel basher! — Mikie

Au contraire, morality works like this: in the decades long conflict of Israel vs Palestine, when Israel attacks and kills Palestinian civilians, that is good because they are the good guys but when the Palestinians do the same, that is bad because they are the bad guys. If you want to know whether killing innocent people is good or not, you need do no more than look at what people they are. If they are "Palestinian", killing them is good. If they are "Israeli", killing them is bad. If the IDF is doing the killing, it is good killing. If Hamas is doing the killing, it is bad killing. This is also very convenient because the IDF does much more killing so there is much more good killing than bad killing and the world is good and right. If you disagree with any of this, you are indeed irrational and simply hate the good guys. In fact, you are probably a bad guy, like Hamas.

(Someone once entertained the subversive idea that the good guys were the innocent civilians on both sides caught up in this cycle of senseless violence and the bad guys were the Israeli and Gazan leaderships perpetuating it in their respective ways, but that someone was called an anti-semite and taken out with white phosphorous, so cartoon world is once again perfect).

Leaving the kindergarten level commentators behind, here are a couple of interesting headlines from Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which tends to try at least to offer a nuanced and critical view of the conflict going on in Israel's name:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-12-12/ty-article/.premium/graphic-videos-and-incitement-how-the-idf-is-misleading-israelis-on-telegram/0000018c-5ab5-df2f-adac-febd01c30000

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-09/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/the-israeli-army-has-dropped-the-restraint-in-gaza-and-data-shows-unprecedented-killing/0000018c-4cca-db23-ad9f-6cdae8ad0000

Amazingly, even the good guys' newspapers don't all believe the good guys are good guys.

But that's what the police do. When the bad guys do something and go hide in a city, the police kill everyone in that city until they have killed all the bad guys. And because they are the good guys, they can kill kids in hospitals and schools and blow up entire apartment blocks of innocent civilians to get one bad guy because that is a good thing to do because they are good. Everything was good in fact until suddenly on Oct 7th the bad guys appeared for no reason and attacked the good guys for no reason so the good guys had to respond to defend themselves by killing the bad guys and destroying the city and killing as many people as they needed to there to get all the bad guys, who keep multiplying by the way, so this could take a while.

It's telling me what to write again. Stop it. STOP that. Heeeeeeeelp

Please tell me I am not abmarmalade.

It's not exactly hearing it because it doesn't sound like sound but like silent sound. But I identify with it so it sounds like me, Bugger. Am I abnormals? :scream:

I can turn it off too but usually requires effort. Have to concentrate on my body.

Is there a little narration going on up there? What does it sound like? — NOS4A2

It sounds like me saying "it sounds like me saying ''''It sounds like me saying. ..

And why would there be stories like this if this person is in the majority? I don't buy it.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-experience-science-1.5486969

"Regularly" have. I'm shocked it's not close to 100'/. tbh. Let's take an unscientific poll here.

America is one of the few places where you can get away with being simultaneously anti-semitic (damn liberal Jews and their evil Hollywood, media, banks etc) and rabidly pro-Israel (the holy land is under threat! God save Jerusalem!). If you are such, you are almost certainly both conservative and Christian (the Evangelicals in particular seem to suffer from this prejudicial paradox). So what's conservative about the cause, it seems to me is at least to an extent what's religious about it. The religious right has set itself up in contradistinction to Islam primarily and the enemy of that enemy must be a friend (even if it's them Jews...)

:up:

@AmadeusD

Nobody who's read my comments here would say (except as a juvenile attempt at provocation) that I've in any way defended Hamas. Troll failed.

Anyhow, I'm going to let @Hanover have the final say in our debate if he wants it and bow out of the thread for a while. I'm saying this here to make it harder for me to be tempted to post more because I think I've said enough for now.

I can also imagine the abject carnage that would precede the rejoicing. — Echarmion

Yes, here's an accounting of Israeli war crimes, just so far, in this conflict, again to highlight the absurd lie that they are a respectable force. It includes attacks on churches, schools, hospitals, execution of prisoners, sexual humiliation of prisoners, attacks with white phosphorous, collective punishment, the murder of journalists, and more.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_war_crimes

Scroll to 2023 conflict.

It's hard to argue, given this litany of abuses, for the moral superiority of the IDF over Hamas.

The only known bombing of a Palestinian hospital was by a stray Hamas rocket, which hit the parking lot, but was first reported by Hamas and on this thread as a direct attack by Israel on the hospital itself. — Hanover

Untrue btw.

''The New York Times published a report by its Visual Investigations team contradicting claims by the Israeli Defense Forces that civilian deaths and damage at the al-Shifa Hospital had been caused by stray Palestinian projectiles.[305] The report concluded instead, "some of the munitions were likely fired by Israeli forces", based on video and satellite evidence and an examination of weapons fragments collected and verified by The New York Times and analyzed by experts.[305] Moreover, two of the most severe strikes analyzed by The Times hit upper floors of the maternity ward and did not appear to be aimed at underground infrastructure.''

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war

Now, please justify the firing of missiles at a maternity ward and how that is self defence.

Assuming that valid information, I assume it occurred as the result of power outages or other events secondary to the IDF"s attempt to remove Hamas from the hospital, or maybe they died of things unrelated to the war. — Hanover

So, you don't know this:

"On 6 November, Israeli forces struck and destroyed the solar panels atop the hospital, leaving it fully reliant on back-up generators powered by rapidly dwindling fuel supplies."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_Hospital_siege

"Rapidly dwindling" because Israel cut off the fuel supplies. So they cut off the fuel supplies and then destroyed the solar panels on top of the hospital just to make sure the electricity will run out and babies in incubators reliant on that electricity are put at risk of death. But that's not their fault? No. If I stand outside your local hospital and cut off the electricity and also cynically make sure your back up is gone too, I'm responsible for the deaths and damage that results from that.

Or maybe the claim is that the phantom Hamas members who were never found at the hospital were using electric powered rifles that were an immediate threat to Israeli citizens tens of miles away? Please explain clearly why this "had to" be done in "self defence". Specifics and verified claims only. There is no verification of any threat coming from the hospital to Israel.

"The Geneva-based human rights organization Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stated, "The Israeli army is the only party controlling the scene inside the al-Shifa Medical Complex, amid a total media blackout. No third party or international organization was permitted to be present inside... Therefore, there are concerns that the army might be creating the scene that might be released later."[96]

The IDF then released photos showing "Military uniforms, 11 guns, three military vests, one with a Hamas logo, nine grenades, two Qurans, a string of prayer beads, a box of dates." Former US State Department legal advisor Brian Finucane, said "These arms by themselves hardly seem to justify the military fixation on al-Shifa, even setting the law aside".[36]

Following the release of the Israeli photos, Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara was skeptical, since Hamas left the guns and nothing else.[97] Bishara added that Israel doesn't have any evidence that justifies "the genocide that they've carried out against Gaza and the bombings of the hospitals and other facilities and for the collective punishments.

Jeremy Bowen, BBC News' international editor, noted that there is no independent scrutiny inside the hospital, since journalists are working under the aegis of the Israeli military.[105] He also stated that the evidence that was produced wasn't convincing enough to prove that "this was a nerve centre for the Hamas operation".[105] On 17 November 2023, journalists for The Independent claimed that "Israel has not presented evidence that shows a large-scale headquarters under the hospital".[106] CNN analysis suggested Israel had rearranged the weaponry before allowing press into the hospital."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_Hospital_siege

So, your justification seems to rest on a bunch of likely bogus or at the very least very questionable claims by the IDF. Certainly not enough to justify the disabling and invasion of a hospital, which is a war crime.

"According to the [International Committee for the Red Cross] If there is doubt about whether a hospital is being used for military purposes, it should be presumed not to be being used militarily"

There is no doubt there is at least doubt.

Do you truly view the Catholics of Northern Ireland as sufficiently similar to Hamas to make this comparison? — Hanover

First of all you're making the wrong comparison. The Catholics in N. Ireland did not = The IRA just as Gazans do not = Hamas. Hamas is and the IRA were militant groups fighting a guerilla war against an occupier and are / were deemed terrorist by the antagonists. The Catholics in N. Ireland and the Gazans are both civilian populations who show / showed support for these militant groups and their war.

Clearly Hamas have a fundamentalist religious ideology and their methods are on the face of it more brutal than the IRA. Also, the IRA didn't have a border with mainland U.K. to fire rockets into it though they did carry out attacks on the security forces and on Protestant civilians within N. Ireland. The IRA posed some though not a major threat to British civilian life but a significant threat to political stability in N. Ireland just as Hamas also poses some though not a major threat to Israeli civilian life but a significant threat to political stability in the region. There are differences but not enough to justify the difference between what the British did and what the Israelis are doing now.

Hamas knowingly threw themselves on this grenade. — Hanover

As I said to you before I would happily see every member of Hamas blown up with the grenades of your choosing. This is not what's happening. Most of the casualties are civilians.

They were disarming Hamas who attempted to use a hospital as a safety zone where the IDF said was a Hamas operational center. — Hanover

No proof of this. They didn't find one Hamas member as far as I know. But let's suppose for argument's sake they were disarming Hamas. Were Hamas members in the incubator room holding babies in front of them while Israeli soldiers shot at them as per your analogy? No. So, the analogy fails. Try again, specifically tell me why they had to suffocate the babies to death and also kill other children. Details please. We're talking about you justifying the killing of babies. You'll need to actually make an effort.

You can keep repeating the word "rape" ad nauseum if you like but as far as I know that's a contested claim (from my reading of wiki) and there's no evidence of a "rape plan". Besides, it's unnecessary as Hamas targeting and butchering civilians, including children, already puts them on an absolute level of depravity. The difference is I can say this and also say suffocating babies to death is depraved. You can't. All you can do is use emotive language about Hamas as an attempt to excuse Israel's atrocities. Are we supposed to feel sorry for the IDF that Hamas "forced" them to kill children in hospitals? What exactly was the proven direct threat from that hospital to Israeli citizens that justified suffocating infants to death? Why did they "have to" kill those children? Spell it out. Otherwise, you have no case for the IDF being morally superior to Hamas.

I'll talk more about the IRA later (yes, there are differences) but I want to know what the specific proven justification for killing children in the hospital is. Make it utilitarian, deontological, whatever you like but drop the rhetoric and say something substantial for a change.

Anyway, I'm campaigning for Trump with @NOS4A2 now. Let's go bruv.

He's going to be on his ass by the looks of things. :razz:

Good. Biden deserves to lose for facilitating the mass killing of civilians and destruction of Gaza.