Uhmm. Are you aware that Israel is #4 on the World Happiness Index this year? It’s the happiest non-scandinavic country in the world. You don’t get there by being “enemy of the people”.
Wow, extremely wealthy country propped up by imperialism has a high happiness rating compared to extremely poor countries being stomped on by that same imperial war machine.
You must understand that you cannot explain it away like that. Palestine perhaps you might, but funnily enough, it’s the happiest country of those four.
Egypt’s, Jordan’s and Lebanon’s bad standings in the happiness scale cannot in any way be explained away by Israel. Just because you lost several wars against an enemy several decades ago isn’t enough to explain any of it. So it’s all on them. As I said, Palestine’s bad situation might be explained by Israel, but again, it’s the happiest of those four.
You didn’t even try to explain in your first comment how “happiness” has anything to do with this.
You said that both Hamas and Israel are the enemies of the people. I disproved that notion by noting how Israel is #4 happiest country in the world. My apologies, I thought the inference was obvious.
Ok, I have to ask. How would you apply this to any other conflict. For example the Allies fighting against Germany. Where did the German civilians fall in the spectrum of evil. Was fighting Germany justified, knowing that German civilians might suffer? If so, how is this situation different?
Strategic bombing - ie, the indiscriminate bombing of populated areas - was ineffective and immoral, and people at the time condemned it as such, and they were right to do so. It was also wrong to use Japanese cities as testbeds for nuclear arms. There was no real strategic reason to do it.
So like… don’t do that? Maybe Israel shouldn’t do that, because fucking obviously?
Like yes, there were bad states on the allied side in WWII as well. You can see that in how they conducted themselves after the war was over, and at many points before that. In fact the policies of the Nazis were directly inspired by US genocides.
You’re not going to trip me up by bringing up the Nazis. I said states are the enemy of the people, and I meant it.
None of what I said should be construed as support for the fascist axis powers, that should just be obvious, but I’m sure I have to say it, because people are just going to try it on.
What? Why? Where did I say that? What the fuck are you talking about?
I asked how this conflict was different and you started talking about a completely different topic like stategic bombing. But Israel isn’t using strategic bombing, they’re using artillery and missiles. Just like how the allies did against Berlin and other German cities when fighting the Germans. So how is this different?
Difference is, Israel isn’t meant to represent palestinian people, Hamas is. And they are doing a great job of it, if their job is getting civilians killed.
Edit: Just think about the massive protests against Netanyahu earlier in the year. Do those show how in tune the Israeli government and people are? No. But the very fact they could protest mostly peacefully differentiates Israel’s treatment of its population from all of its neighbours.
Yeah… but they’re still bombing civilians. The “human shields” thing makes no sense. Israel was bombing apartment buildings before they helped create Hamas.
It makes sense because it doesn’t violate Geneva conventions. If there are combatants hiding among civilians their deaths are 100% on said combatants. What do you expect Israel to do? After a terrorist attack that is equal to 17 (!) times the scope of 9/11 just to shrug it off and send more humanitarian aid to be pillaged by Hamas?
100%. People here scream “genocide” and “war crimes” but have no idea what these words mean. The “friends” of Palestine here make even Reddit look normal.
Doesn’t change the fact that in this conflict, the IDF are trying to get Hamas targets with their attacks. And that the Hamas are the ones that built their infrastructure next to civilians, that Hamas did kill Israeli civilians indiscriminately and that the Hamas knew full well, that by building their infrastructure next to civilians and by mindlessly raiding Israeli territory, the IDF would respond and kill palestinian civilians while doing so. Israel wants to crush Hamas. Hamas wants as many people to die as possible, so that Israel is made a pariah internationally.
Right… so it’s so predictable that the IDF would bomb civilians that any provocation makes the provoker guilty of their murders?
So basically the IDF are so irredeemable in your eyes they’re just a force of nature or something?
Again, you’re also ignoring the fact that Israel created Hamas.
And Israel SHOULD be a pariah. The only reason they’ve gotten away with this genocide for so long is because they’ve had unconditional US state backing.
What do you think Israel should do then with Hamas? Let them get away with murdering more than 1200 Israelis? Conduct small-scale incursions at best? The fact of the matter is simply that the situation was fucked long before and the palestinian civilians were in accute danger of becoming collateral the moment the Hamas broke into Israel. If you are looking for a clearer good-guy bad-guy situation, look to the westbank. There, the Israeli settlers are clearly the ones in the wrong.
All the outrage in the world won’t stop Israel from continuing to bomb Hamas in Gaza. On the other hand, Abbas and Fatah got Palestine the recognition of most UN member states. And unlike Hamas, Fatah isn’t getting their civilians killed in droves.
If you’re coming to any international conflict, but specially to this one, from a “good guys/bad guys” framework you’re absolutely not helping.
Sometimes (a lot of times, sadly) all you get in a particular issue is just assholes all the way down. Unsurprisingly, deadly military conflicts where both sides have proven at best a callous disregard for civilian casualties practically requires the asshole pile to be expansive and thorough.
The question is how you get the endless, writhing mass of assholes to stop. Which isn’t looking great right now.
I got that impression too, and the fediverse has lost a lot of its shine recently. People are rushing to say that they support “both sides” and Israel can defend itself… but just not in any way that would be able to stop another attack like October’s from happening. It feels like a lot of people just want to side with Hamas, but don’t want to actually say that out loud.
It’s been a very eye-opening experience over the past month to see just how little the left cares about victims of violence if they happen to be Jewish.
I made the mistake of commenting on this post where people clearly think that the Hamas are the good guys and have every right to do what they do. Apologies for linking to it.
Of course if you go to tankie central you get tankies. They’re also acting like Putin didn’t order the shelling and capture of Ukrainian cities and it’s all just (insert kremlin talking point here).
They are a specific niche of political mind. The kind that only thinks western nations are capable of propaganda and evil. Don’t take them as representative of smarter people.
Tactically their October 7 attack was incredibly silly, honestly what did they think would happen?
They gave Netanyahu, who was finally fumbling at the reigns after almost thirty years aan excuse to execute his wet dreams and all of Israel uniting behind him.
I see no way how they could have thought the attack would benefit their cause.
To answer the question, what they think would happen: Their October 7th attacked achieved everything they wanted.
KSA and Israel we’re coming to an understanding and treaty, that was against the interests of Iran who is in a power struggle with the KSA.
After their attack, it is now politically impossible for the KSA and Israel to have a treaty. That alone justifies this entire conflict from their power politics perspective
They never had any hope of inflicting damage on the Israeli government. They clearly don’t care about their own civilian casualties. In fact The worst the reprisals the better for their recruitment and funding efforts.
Probably not directly related to the rationale for their attack, but it got them some ancillary support, it removed Russia’s aggression from the news media cycle. Which probably got them some favor in those circles.
From a media perspective, this has been a massive Boone for their campaign. They more or less had disappeared from international headlines for the last 10 years. Now everybody is talking about the genocide, and the ethnic cleansing. They’re going to pay very dearly for it, but that’s more media attention than they’ve had for a decade.
Ok yes I can follow that. The cynical thing is that in none of the reasons the Palestinian people are central. Those are victimized by both the Israelis and Hamas, following this rationale.
An extra cynical level is that the wished of the extreme right Israelis and Hamas are the same. To keep this war going indefinitely, not matter the cost of human life.
In what kind of setting would this be proposed? ‘listen we might invite genocidal terror on our own people, but Russia needs some radio silence and we crave media attention’ and everyone involved going like ‘that’s absolutely worth it brother’.
Maybe I’m too naive, I cannot see the tactical gain in that perspective. Thanks though, for good counter points. It helps me trying to make some kind of sense of this.
I highly recommend you read, or listen to, The Prince by Machiavelli. It’s a very short read, but helps you get in the right frame of mind for this type of politicking
The whole philosophy is how to get the outcomes you want, any means are justified.
Saying person X is playing into person Ys playbook is making huge assumptions about their goals.
We can only infer and guess as to the organizational goals at play. We can line up the incentives for their actions, as I did two posts up, and say their behavior is consistent with these incentives.
We can only infer and guess as to the organizational goals at play. We can line up the incentives for their actions, as I did two posts up, and say their behavior is consistent with these incentives.
And I thank you for that exposition, however cynical it does give some reason to what appears madness.
But if it comes to serving the people of Palestine they aren’t really doing that, rather the opposite.
Hamas is not working in the best interest of Palestine civilians, they are working in the best interest of Hamas - Which is a fascist theocratic military organization with goals of ethnic cleansing.
The only issue at question is why did the Gazan people feel that Hamas was their best option in 2006 when they were elected into office? I don’t really know, I can speculate that the hopeless turn to extreme religious war mongers for even the promise of a better future, or failing that the promise of a fight as they are erased from history… some people, when they have no hope, will hold on to revenge.
Since 2006, and the failed coup in 2007, Hamas hasn’t held any elections and runs as a dictatorship.
To be fair, and I realize it’s difficult to be fair here:
The Israeli government has said it is going for the total destruction of Hamas. Hamas has said it is going for the total destruction of the Israeli government… They’ve taken up equivalent positions
I think what that really means, is both belligerents are going to try the radical new policy of killing more random civilians, and seeing if anything changes…
who still thinks hamas are the good guys?
Only tankies. Literally no one out here with a braincell is defending Hamas.
Who still thinks any state is the good guys? Hamas and Israel are both enemies of the people.
The only way to cut through the propagandistic lies of these groups is to point out that neither truly represents the people they say they do.
Uhmm. Are you aware that Israel is #4 on the World Happiness Index this year? It’s the happiest non-scandinavic country in the world. You don’t get there by being “enemy of the people”.
Here are the rankings of Israel’s neighbors:
Israel is obviously not the problem in that area.
Wow, extremely wealthy country propped up by imperialism has a high happiness rating compared to extremely poor countries being stomped on by that same imperial war machine.
Surely the poor countries are the problem.
You must understand that you cannot explain it away like that. Palestine perhaps you might, but funnily enough, it’s the happiest country of those four.
Why not? Literally just give any explanation. You didn’t even try to explain in your first comment how “happiness” has anything to do with this.
Egypt’s, Jordan’s and Lebanon’s bad standings in the happiness scale cannot in any way be explained away by Israel. Just because you lost several wars against an enemy several decades ago isn’t enough to explain any of it. So it’s all on them. As I said, Palestine’s bad situation might be explained by Israel, but again, it’s the happiest of those four.
You said that both Hamas and Israel are the enemies of the people. I disproved that notion by noting how Israel is #4 happiest country in the world. My apologies, I thought the inference was obvious.
There are levels of evil.
And? You’re allowed to say what you mean, you know.
Where do the civilians being bombed fall on your spectrum of evil? Do they somehow deserve it in your eyes?
Ok, I have to ask. How would you apply this to any other conflict. For example the Allies fighting against Germany. Where did the German civilians fall in the spectrum of evil. Was fighting Germany justified, knowing that German civilians might suffer? If so, how is this situation different?
Strategic bombing - ie, the indiscriminate bombing of populated areas - was ineffective and immoral, and people at the time condemned it as such, and they were right to do so. It was also wrong to use Japanese cities as testbeds for nuclear arms. There was no real strategic reason to do it.
So like… don’t do that? Maybe Israel shouldn’t do that, because fucking obviously?
Like yes, there were bad states on the allied side in WWII as well. You can see that in how they conducted themselves after the war was over, and at many points before that. In fact the policies of the Nazis were directly inspired by US genocides.
You’re not going to trip me up by bringing up the Nazis. I said states are the enemy of the people, and I meant it.
None of what I said should be construed as support for the fascist axis powers, that should just be obvious, but I’m sure I have to say it, because people are just going to try it on.
But you’re still ok with using artillery against a city if the city has an army in it?
What? Why? Where did I say that? What the fuck are you talking about?
I asked how this conflict was different and you started talking about a completely different topic like stategic bombing. But Israel isn’t using strategic bombing, they’re using artillery and missiles. Just like how the allies did against Berlin and other German cities when fighting the Germans. So how is this different?
Difference is, Israel isn’t meant to represent palestinian people, Hamas is. And they are doing a great job of it, if their job is getting civilians killed.
Edit: Just think about the massive protests against Netanyahu earlier in the year. Do those show how in tune the Israeli government and people are? No. But the very fact they could protest mostly peacefully differentiates Israel’s treatment of its population from all of its neighbours.
The… what? I have no idea what you’re even trying to say.
The IDF is still dropping bombs on civilians. You can invent whatever bullshit you feel like, it doesn’t make that somehow okay.
The IDF is dropping bombs on (suspected) Hamas holdouts, which are all conveniently located next to civilians.
Yeah… but they’re still bombing civilians. The “human shields” thing makes no sense. Israel was bombing apartment buildings before they helped create Hamas.
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
It makes sense because it doesn’t violate Geneva conventions. If there are combatants hiding among civilians their deaths are 100% on said combatants. What do you expect Israel to do? After a terrorist attack that is equal to 17 (!) times the scope of 9/11 just to shrug it off and send more humanitarian aid to be pillaged by Hamas?
100%. People here scream “genocide” and “war crimes” but have no idea what these words mean. The “friends” of Palestine here make even Reddit look normal.
Doesn’t change the fact that in this conflict, the IDF are trying to get Hamas targets with their attacks. And that the Hamas are the ones that built their infrastructure next to civilians, that Hamas did kill Israeli civilians indiscriminately and that the Hamas knew full well, that by building their infrastructure next to civilians and by mindlessly raiding Israeli territory, the IDF would respond and kill palestinian civilians while doing so. Israel wants to crush Hamas. Hamas wants as many people to die as possible, so that Israel is made a pariah internationally.
Right… so it’s so predictable that the IDF would bomb civilians that any provocation makes the provoker guilty of their murders?
So basically the IDF are so irredeemable in your eyes they’re just a force of nature or something?
Again, you’re also ignoring the fact that Israel created Hamas.
And Israel SHOULD be a pariah. The only reason they’ve gotten away with this genocide for so long is because they’ve had unconditional US state backing.
What do you think Israel should do then with Hamas? Let them get away with murdering more than 1200 Israelis? Conduct small-scale incursions at best? The fact of the matter is simply that the situation was fucked long before and the palestinian civilians were in accute danger of becoming collateral the moment the Hamas broke into Israel. If you are looking for a clearer good-guy bad-guy situation, look to the westbank. There, the Israeli settlers are clearly the ones in the wrong.
All the outrage in the world won’t stop Israel from continuing to bomb Hamas in Gaza. On the other hand, Abbas and Fatah got Palestine the recognition of most UN member states. And unlike Hamas, Fatah isn’t getting their civilians killed in droves.
If you’re coming to any international conflict, but specially to this one, from a “good guys/bad guys” framework you’re absolutely not helping.
Sometimes (a lot of times, sadly) all you get in a particular issue is just assholes all the way down. Unsurprisingly, deadly military conflicts where both sides have proven at best a callous disregard for civilian casualties practically requires the asshole pile to be expansive and thorough.
The question is how you get the endless, writhing mass of assholes to stop. Which isn’t looking great right now.
My impression is that at least half of fediverse.
I got that impression too, and the fediverse has lost a lot of its shine recently. People are rushing to say that they support “both sides” and Israel can defend itself… but just not in any way that would be able to stop another attack like October’s from happening. It feels like a lot of people just want to side with Hamas, but don’t want to actually say that out loud.
It’s been a very eye-opening experience over the past month to see just how little the left cares about victims of violence if they happen to be Jewish.
I made the mistake of commenting on this post where people clearly think that the Hamas are the good guys and have every right to do what they do. Apologies for linking to it.
Of course if you go to tankie central you get tankies. They’re also acting like Putin didn’t order the shelling and capture of Ukrainian cities and it’s all just (insert kremlin talking point here).
They are a specific niche of political mind. The kind that only thinks western nations are capable of propaganda and evil. Don’t take them as representative of smarter people.
Tactically their October 7 attack was incredibly silly, honestly what did they think would happen?
They gave Netanyahu, who was finally fumbling at the reigns after almost thirty years aan excuse to execute his wet dreams and all of Israel uniting behind him.
I see no way how they could have thought the attack would benefit their cause.
To answer the question, what they think would happen: Their October 7th attacked achieved everything they wanted.
KSA and Israel we’re coming to an understanding and treaty, that was against the interests of Iran who is in a power struggle with the KSA.
After their attack, it is now politically impossible for the KSA and Israel to have a treaty. That alone justifies this entire conflict from their power politics perspective
They never had any hope of inflicting damage on the Israeli government. They clearly don’t care about their own civilian casualties. In fact The worst the reprisals the better for their recruitment and funding efforts.
Probably not directly related to the rationale for their attack, but it got them some ancillary support, it removed Russia’s aggression from the news media cycle. Which probably got them some favor in those circles.
From a media perspective, this has been a massive Boone for their campaign. They more or less had disappeared from international headlines for the last 10 years. Now everybody is talking about the genocide, and the ethnic cleansing. They’re going to pay very dearly for it, but that’s more media attention than they’ve had for a decade.
Ok yes I can follow that. The cynical thing is that in none of the reasons the Palestinian people are central. Those are victimized by both the Israelis and Hamas, following this rationale.
An extra cynical level is that the wished of the extreme right Israelis and Hamas are the same. To keep this war going indefinitely, not matter the cost of human life.
In what kind of setting would this be proposed? ‘listen we might invite genocidal terror on our own people, but Russia needs some radio silence and we crave media attention’ and everyone involved going like ‘that’s absolutely worth it brother’.
Maybe I’m too naive, I cannot see the tactical gain in that perspective. Thanks though, for good counter points. It helps me trying to make some kind of sense of this.
It’s straight Machiavelli politics.
I highly recommend you read, or listen to, The Prince by Machiavelli. It’s a very short read, but helps you get in the right frame of mind for this type of politicking
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm
Yeah I know Machiavelli, I don’t remember suicidal tactics, though, and certainly not playing according to ones worst enemies playbook.
But mass media wasn’t around in the Renaissance…
The whole philosophy is how to get the outcomes you want, any means are justified.
Saying person X is playing into person Ys playbook is making huge assumptions about their goals.
We can only infer and guess as to the organizational goals at play. We can line up the incentives for their actions, as I did two posts up, and say their behavior is consistent with these incentives.
And I thank you for that exposition, however cynical it does give some reason to what appears madness.
But if it comes to serving the people of Palestine they aren’t really doing that, rather the opposite.
Hamas is not working in the best interest of Palestine civilians, they are working in the best interest of Hamas - Which is a fascist theocratic military organization with goals of ethnic cleansing.
The only issue at question is why did the Gazan people feel that Hamas was their best option in 2006 when they were elected into office? I don’t really know, I can speculate that the hopeless turn to extreme religious war mongers for even the promise of a better future, or failing that the promise of a fight as they are erased from history… some people, when they have no hope, will hold on to revenge.
Since 2006, and the failed coup in 2007, Hamas hasn’t held any elections and runs as a dictatorship.
Nobody said they were.
edit: okay crazy people on a lemmygrad site said they were. But that page that guy linked looked about as nice as a 4chan site…
Somebody told me recently on here that “Hamas is facing a genocide” apparently without any sort of irony or remorse.
Hamas killed 1400 civilians.
The IDF has killed about 9500 civilians so far.
I dunno, I think that Hamas may not be the good guys, but they’re definitely the less bad guys.
To be fair, and I realize it’s difficult to be fair here:
The Israeli government has said it is going for the total destruction of Hamas. Hamas has said it is going for the total destruction of the Israeli government… They’ve taken up equivalent positions
I think what that really means, is both belligerents are going to try the radical new policy of killing more random civilians, and seeing if anything changes…