Legit question - is there any actual grounds for the “terrorist” label other than striking at a long term oppressive occupying force? Cause ive not seen anyone show any receipts past calling Oct 7 “terrorism” or their overall governance as “extreme” (which, again, makes sense to me after 50 some years of oppression and occupation.)
Murdering and kidnapping civilians with the purpose of enacting their political goals does fit the label of terrorism. Then again, Israel does also murder and kidnap Palestinian civilians (and I mean kidnaps, because they don’t have the legal grounds to imprison people at the West Bank) for the sake of their political goals, and they don’t get called terrorists. So I call both Hamas and Israel terrorists, but a good general corollary is that there’s always political motivation behind someone using or not using that label.
This is my main issue - in a vacuum sure it’d be terrorism but in this instance I don’t see how one side is terrorist but one side is heroic other than “brown bad, white gud.” I’m trying to be open minded but Zionists don’t really have an argument past “fuck you sympathizer”
If you want a general ethical position on the issue that I have found consistent so far:
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Hamas is fundamentally different from other liberation groups, in that Hamas doesn’t intend to integrate the descendants of colonizers into the country they want Palestine (the whole of it) to be. For instance, the ANC saw the white South Africans as South Africans - they were colonizers, sure, but they would be citizens of the country they intended to rule, so instead of targeting civilians, they attacked military targets and infrastructure.
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We see everyday what the Israeli government does on this sub, any person who isn’t predisposed in their favor can easily understand that they’re a few steps away from going full nazi.
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The vast majority of civilians on both sides are innocent, and don’t deserve to be brutalized.
So it isn’t really a matter of whether you prefer Israel or Hamas, it is first and foremost, a matter of making sure civilians aren’t subject to abuse, and are capable of living their lives freely and in peace. Of course, it also needs to be understood that the construct that is the political system of Israel-Palestine (this is, only Israel exists as a sovereign country, while “Palestine” is a couple of not too self-governed territories over which Israel practices sovereignity) provokes a continued abuse and misery that will ignite further conflict sooner or later. So while the first priority is getting a cease fire now, aiming for a real, practical 2 state solution or 1 state solution where both Palestinians and Israelis are free citizens without being subject to the whims of the other party is needed if we don’t want to have a similar mess in 5, 10 or 20 years.
Hamas is fundamentally different from other liberation groups, in that Hamas doesn’t intend to integrate the descendants of colonizers into the country they want Palestine (the whole of it) to be. For instance, the ANC saw the white South Africans as South Africans - they were colonizers, sure, but they would be citizens of the country they intended to rule, so instead of targeting civilians, they attacked military targets and infrastructure.
Well that’s false. If anything Hamas with their 33% military kill rate on Oct7 has a one of the lowest civilian-casualty in a resistance movement. Their attacks were extremely targeted towards military bases as well. But whaddaya know. Whitewash the history a bit and the ANC all become angels. Why was Nelson Mandela on the terrorist list again? We love that guy! He was the peace guy right?
ANC apologizes for deaths in anti-apartheid fight - But says struggle was justified
And also, Hamas has already put a 2 state deal on the table recently. If israel accepts it Hamas would then give up their expelling of israeli colonists. However israel in its infinite wisdom decides that while it is in power it will not make any compromises.
For your own link:
The ANC repeated its position that the armed struggle against the country’s white-ruled government, which began in 1960, was a just war and that civilians had not been deliberately targeted.
But the ANC statement said some of its guerrillas weren’t sufficiently trained and “were never thoroughly under the discipline of the ANC.”
Avoiding harming civilians was a deliberate modus operandi of the ANC, the same way that Hamas deliberately kidnapped civilians. They cannot be blamed for attacking military bases - they should be blamed for attacking that which was neither military bases nor infrastructure.
So the ANC gets all the benefit of the doubt (in hindsight of course. Not while it’s happening) but Hamas which is working with people that have been locked into a concentration camp for 20 years are all supposed to be angels. Was Hamas working with a well trained military while locked inside of their concentration camp having to plan a giant operation in utmost secrecy?
Hamas was far more disciplined than the American military was in Iraq during Oct7. All while having suffered far more aggression.
The kidnapping thing you can condemn but Hamas has no other option to get their own hostages out which are deep in israeli territory. And israel doing it was fine with everyone.
The real bad thing was some soldiers deliberately killing unarmed Israelis. But again the rate (civilian casualty %) at which that happened was far lower than almost any insurgency. You don’t get people risking their lives to invade concentration camp guardposts if they’re not very very angry.
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But but people here told me they’re just freedom fighters!
What do you think freedom fighters are? The fact that they are fighting for freedom does not inherently mean that they support Western values. The West does not have a monopoly on freedom.
American right-wing media Freedom New TV (FNTV) and according to several videos of the rally published by the organizers on the social networks.
Meaning that we could be talking about one or two flags shown through a distorted media lens.
That said, it should be on the demonstrators to ensure people waving such flags get put at the margins and I hope that is what is happening.
This is the standard that was applied when a few nazi flags showed up at convoy rallies. You either need to reclaim the cause for your protest, or admit that it actually stands for something else and then ask yourself if you want to be part of that.
Did the convoy involve a genocide?
Some of the people in that movement thought so. From things they read on the internet, they were led to believe that covid was part of a plan to kill millions of people.
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, kids. It may lead you to get so emotional over genocide claims that you end up being associated with some actual genocidal groups.
The problem is 60-70% of Palestine supports Hamas. This isn’t a fringe group waving flags around.
I’d like to see where you got that figure from. Regardless, this Lemmy, not Palestine. We’re talking about what people “usually” believe on Lemmy.
It’s not pretty… https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/
People on Lemmy seem to think Hamas just wants to bring unicorns and rainbows to the region. When in reality, they’d stone most of the users here for their views.
It’s all weird. I don’t know what kind of social engineering they did to make it OK to kill 1000 civilians, but their campaign was wildly successful.
I can’t help but notice they didn’t actually link to the survey, which doesn’t let me know exactly what was asked, what the sample size was, where the samples were taken from, etc.
Regardless… this is not Palestine. It is Lemmy. The vast majority of people on Lemmy are very unlikely to be Palestinian considering their percentage of the global population.
You claimed, in a discussion about comments on Lemmy that usually, the people against this genocide support Hamas.
Which, again, I think is both offensive and wrong.
My point is Palestine as a whole or even partially support Hamas. Go Google it…you’ll see from 30-90 percent support.
Only a couple of Hamas flags flying would surprise me.
