Ed General Israel/Palestine discussion thread - Part 3

[uke2se]

Hamas: Literally puts the destruction of Israel and the concept of Jihad in their founding documents.

"Okay but if you react to Hamas that just means you fell into their trap."

You should react to the murder of civilians. But, if you react by murdering civilians you're not the good guy, and you're not helping prevent what happened from happening again.

Hamas attacked, murdered and pillaged because of Israeli policy for 75 years. Israel has to change for violence to end. Or, I suppose, they could commit a genocide, which is where things seem to be going.

 

[JoeMorgue]

And is there any possible way for Hamas to achieve that?

Again "LOL it's not like Hamas can really kill all the Jews!" is a bad argument and I'm shocked that you actually present it as one.

Again the goal post move to "They are not an EXISTENTIAL (Trademark) threat" is one I will not follow you to.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You should react to the murder of civilians. But, if you react by murdering civilians you're not the good guy, and you're not helping prevent what happened from happening again.

They AREN'T the good guy. I'm just not solely attacking one side because they are the underdog and I have white guilt about colonialism and pretending that's the same thing as being fair and balanced.

I'm not going to repost my entire "Here's why Israel sucks" argument every time I say something bad about Hamas.

My statements critical of the other side are still there, available for anyone to read. The same cannot be said for many in this thread.

 

[theprestige]

Contra Steven den Beste, whose insights I generally respect, I don't think the main purpose of terrorism is to provoke a violent response and thus increase recruiting and fundraising.

Rather, I think the main purpose of terrorism is to destabilize a region and make space for your faction to establish a fiefdom. This is why I think 9/11 was ultimately a failure for Al Qaeda. Attacks on American soil have no payoff in terms of territorial gains in a region Al Qaeda can reasonably hope to control. This is why I think ISIS had a much smarter approach: Act locally. Carve a local caliphate out of the regional chaos you're contributing to.

And that's generally what we see. In Afghanistan, in Africa, we see terrorists creating or contributing to local instability, and then exploiting that to set up their own kingdoms, with blackjack and hookers (or not, as Allah wills it). Bin Laden did 9/11, and it earned him the throne of a McMansion in BFE Pakistan. The Taliban acted locally, and now they're in charge of as much of Afghanistan as they can fit in their grasp. The only thing they got out of 9/11 was a thirty-year hiatus to their rule.

Giving Gaza over to Hamas as their own independent fiefdom is where Israel fell into the trap.

Or was it? Sure, allowing a terrorist fiefdom right on their border is a problem, but it keeps the terrorist instability more or less confined, and brings greater stability to the rest of the country. And that makes things awkward for Hamas. Because Hamas doesn't just want its own little kingdom of hate by the sea. As they say quite clearly, they want to rule everything. They want the Jews gone from Israel, and Israel gone from the map.

And for that, they need to spread their instability beyond Gaza's borders. They need insurgent uprisings and terror attacks from the coast of the Med to the banks of the Jordan. I think that's what this attack was about. I think Hamas was stagnating in Gaza, and hoped to spark enough regional chaos to hasten Israel's collapse.

 

[Ziggurat]

You should react to the murder of civilians. But, if you react by murdering civilians you're not the good guy,

At a certain point, even good people stop placing being good as a priority. It becomes about survival.

and you're not helping prevent what happened from happening again.

This is naive. Wars are not won by being merciful. It's nice to be merciful if you can be, but it's a luxury. The historical norm is that ruthlessness works. Killing your enemies works.

 

[JoeMorgue]

And again, and no I'm dropping this so get used to hearing it, there isn't a person in this thread who Hamas would not drag into the street and behead. And yes that does matter. And watching the same people who in every other thread in every other context put on a big show about how they are too good to negotiate with Republicans or Racists or Homophobes or Terfs bending over backwards to excuse away Hamas would be funny it wasn't so problematic.

Again Hamas is literally everything half you treat Republicans as subhuman over times 1,000.

Some of you are blinded by a victim ranking fetish that you just can't dare to put the brown people low on.

 

[uke2se]

They AREN'T the good guy. I'm just not solely attacking one side because they are the underdog and I have white guilt about colonialism and pretending that's the same thing as being fair and balanced.

I'm not going to repost my entire "Here's why Israel sucks" argument every time I say something bad about Hamas.

My statements critical of the other side are still there, available for anyone to read. The same cannot be said for many in this thread.

In that case we are in agreement. Hamas is a monstrous organization that deserves whatever's coming to them. It is, however, a monster of Israel's making.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Again "LOL it's not like Hamas can really kill all the Jews!" is a bad argument and I'm shocked that you actually present it as one.

Again the goal post move to "They are not an EXISTENTIAL (Trademark) threat" is one I will not follow you to.

No, this is a very important point, and I have been making this distinction from the start: my goalposts are where they have always been.

Proportionality is the central aspect of any military response, if it wants to stay within the internationally agreed framework.
And even if you don't like it, the fight is inherently asymmetrical, which means that Israel needs to pull its punches, because it can hit so much harder.

This has nothing to do with Hamas in particular and everything to do with Israel not acting like a conqueror

 

[JoeMorgue]

No, this is a very important point, and I have been making this distinction from the start: my goalposts are where they have always been.

Proportionality is the central aspect of any military response, if it wants to stay within the internationally agreed framework.
And even if you don't like it, the fight is inherently asymmetrical, which means that Israel needs to pull its punches, because it can hit so much harder.

This has nothing to do with Hamas in particular and everything to do with Israel not acting like a conqueror

Again you can't put "The total destruction of X" in your founding documents and then call for "proportionality" nor have someone do it in your defense.

Hamas would drag you into the street and kill you. You are calling for "proprotionality" against them is comical.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The real world is not golf. You don't get assigned a handicap for being more powerful.

Again the "But Hamas is the widdle guy!" context people keep putting in their arguments is A) ******** because it has the entire rest of the Middle East backing it up and we all know it and B) would still be nonsense even if was just pure Hamas Versus Israel.

 

[theprestige]

No, this is a very important point, and I have been making this distinction from the start: my goalposts are where they have always been.

Proportionality is the central aspect of any military response, if it wants to stay within the internationally agreed framework.
And even if you don't like it, the fight is inherently asymmetrical, which means that Israel needs to pull its punches, because it can hit so much harder.

This has nothing to do with Hamas in particular and everything to do with Israel not acting like a conqueror

The only principle of proportionality in just warfare, that I'm aware of, is that the risk of collateral damage from an attack must be proportional to the anticipated military benefit if the attack succeeds.

I would go so far as to say the kind of "proportionality" you're talking about - limiting your strength to the strength of your enemy - is not just stupid and wrong, but objectively evil.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Years ago I used to read a blog by Steven Den Beste. He wrote a couple good articles regarding terrorism and tangentially the Israel Palestine conflict. I'm not sure if he was entirely correct (he was an engineer, not a historian) but his explanation made sense to me at the time.

The articles are still around on web archives somewhere (Den Beste passed away several years ago), but they are too wordy to quote, so I'll try to summarize what I remember about them.

The objective of terrorism is not actually to create terror or even really to do damage to the enemy. It's actually to provoke a response, the more brutal the better (within limits). The response breeds hatred towards the enemy among your people, which helps with recruitment.

Disproportionate attacks in response also result in sympathy for the plight of your people.

Eventually, you reach a point where you are strong enough that to convert to guerilla warfare.

He also specifically said that the Palestinian groups (Hamas, etc.) had completely botched the whole idea. It's hard to gain sympathy when you are killing children in their beds and the like.

At the same time, The Israelis don't help because they help to perpetrate the conditions that breed terrorists: poverty, hopelessness, etc. And their hands aren't exactly clean either. (There were articles not too long ago about Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians and driving them from their homes.)

Other than the pipe dream of one group giving up and moving somewhere else, the only way I can see to end this is to undermine the conditions that terrorist groups like Hamas feed on. Hamas wants poverty and misery. It's what they feed on. So take that away.

I don't mean "send money." I mean build an economy.

Hamas absolutely has to be eliminated (or reduced to insignificance), but the day after, the plan should be to build Gaza up. Of course, it would take the assistance of other (mostly Arab) countries as there is little trust for Israel.

Unfortunately the scenario that would remove Hamas' power base is one that Israel refuses to consider. It will not give Palestine freedom, independence and control of its own land. For then Eretz Ysrael, the country's version of Lebensraum nach Osten, is dead.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Well, look at the results of Hamas' response to Israel's atrocities over the last two decades.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Again you can't put "The total destruction of X" in your founding documents and then call for "proportionality" nor have someone do it in your defense.

Hamas would drag you into the street and kill you. You are calling for "proprotionality" against them is comical.

okay, let's see what we can agree on:

- Israel was attacked by Hamas fighters out of the Gaza Strip.
- Mostly undefended villages were targeted, more than a thousand killed, many thousand wounded.
- As long as Hamas operates, it could perform similar attacks in the future.
- Hamas operates out of the Gaza Strip, and recruits heavily from there
- an endless network of tunnels under Gaza makes it extremely dangerous for soldiers to try to root them out

assuming we are in agreement with all of this, I would like you to answer this question, please:

if the IDF decides that the most effective way to eliminate the threat of Hamas once an for all is dropping a Nuke on Gaza (because it would also collapse all the tunnels and remove the ability to continue operations), can it do this as a measure of self-protection ?

And if not, why not?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Yes the Jews who live in .000000000000000000000000000001% of the Middle East surrounded by a dozen fully Muslim countries won't give 1/4th of their land away as a "compromise."

Again this is the absurdity of all of this. The idea that ~2 million Arabic Speaking Muslims can't just go and live in any of the dozen Arabic Speaking Muslim countries within 10 feet of where they are now and will only happy if, by amazing coincidence that has absolutely nothing to do with a millennia of entrenched antisemitism in the Muslim world, the tiny Jewish country gives back part of it's land.

Yes I'm so totally sure that would make them happy and then wouldn't just turn around and ask for more Jewish land. Again it's not like Hamas didn't put "Israel shouldn't exist" on the throw pillows in the parlor or anything.

I'm like legit annoying that people keep pretending anyone is supposed to buy it honestly.

If you really think if Israel dropped its end of the rope right now and just straight up gave Gaza 100% back to "Palestine" the conflict would even slow down, much less end, you're a crazy person.

 

[dudalb]

okay, let's see what we can agree on:

- Israel was attacked by Hamas fighters out of the Gaza Strip.
- Mostly undefended villages were targeted, more than a thousand killed, many thousand wounded.
- As long as Hamas operates, it could perform similar attacks in the future.
- Hamas operates out of the Gaza Strip, and recruits heavily from there
- an endless network of tunnels under Gaza makes it extremely dangerous for soldiers to try to root them out

assuming we are in agreement with all of this, I would like you to answer this question, please:

if the IDF decides that the most effective way to eliminate the threat of Hamas once an for all is dropping a Nuke on Gaza (because it would also collapse all the tunnels and remove the ability to continue operations), can it do this as a measure of self-protection ?

And if not, why not?

So Israel should just let HAMAS continue to attack it?

 

[dudalb]

Yes the Jews who live in .000000000000000000000000000001% of the Middle East surrounded by a dozen fully Muslim countries won't give 1/4th of their land away as a "compromise."

Again this is the absurdity of all of this. The idea that ~2 million Arabic Speaking Muslims can't just go and live in any of the dozen Arabic Speaking Muslim countries within 10 feet of where they are now and will only happy if, by amazing coincidence that has absolutely nothing to do with a millennia of entrenched antisemitism in the Muslim world, the tiny Jewish country gives back part of it's land.

Yes I'm so totally sure that would make them happy and then wouldn't just turn around and ask for more Jewish land. Again it's not like Hamas didn't put "Israel shouldn't exist" on the throw pillows in the parlor or anything.

I'm like legit annoying that people keep pretending anyone is supposed to buy it honestly.

If you really think if Israel dropped its end of the rope right now and just straight up gave Gaza 100% back to "Palestine" the conflict would even slow down, much less end, you're a crazy person.

One huge reason I am not a "Progressive" is that hatred of Israel is now Prog Dogma.

 

[theprestige]

okay, let's see what we can agree on:

- Israel was attacked by Hamas fighters out of the Gaza Strip.
- Mostly undefended villages were targeted, more than a thousand killed, many thousand wounded.
- As long as Hamas operates, it could perform similar attacks in the future.
- Hamas operates out of the Gaza Strip, and recruits heavily from there
- an endless network of tunnels under Gaza makes it extremely dangerous for soldiers to try to root them out

assuming we are in agreement with all of this, I would like you to answer this question, please:

if the IDF decides that the most effective way to eliminate the threat of Hamas once an for all is dropping a Nuke on Gaza (because it would also collapse all the tunnels and remove the ability to continue operations), can it do this as a measure of self-protection ?

And if not, why not?

You understand the reality of the situation. It's not pretty, but you agree that Hamas is evil and needs to be ended, even at great cost. But other people, who are ignorant and don't understand this the way you do, will get the wrong idea and stop supporting Israel. That's why they shouldn't do it. You'd be in favor of doing it, too, if you weren't worried about how much it would cost Israel, in the loss of support from other people.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The whole "Hamas is doing X to get a response" thing has now fully morphed into "I'm not judging you, I'm just judging you for not acting as if other people are going to judge you exactly as I think they will in a way that is functionally identical to just me being the one judging you."

Again there's no functional difference between being on someone's side and "Totally not being on their side but literally everything you do in response to them means they win."

I'm doing being told I'm not considering the how the terrorist group is going to react the right way.

 

[lobosrul5]

And again, and no I'm dropping this so get used to hearing it, there isn't a person in this thread who Hamas would not drag into the street and behead. And yes that does matter. And watching the same people who in every other thread in every other context put on a big show about how they are too good to negotiate with Republicans or Racists or Homophobes or Terfs bending over backwards to excuse away Hamas would be funny it wasn't so problematic.

Again Hamas is literally everything half you treat Republicans as subhuman over times 1,000.

Some of you are blinded by a victim ranking fetish that you just can't dare to put the brown people low on.

I mean is that what this is... Palestinians are bit more brown than Israeli's on average... I see lots of brown Israeli's on TV, some white ones too... so they're the auto good guys to the left?!