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rscott posted:I categorically deny the utility of targeting civilians but that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the ridiculous understatement that you've made. So long as the face is only biting the boot and not the leg, all things are well and good. And, to ruin a succinct statement, gasping for breath counts as biting and therefor requires far more stamping in self defense.
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Jan 6, 2016 04:55
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Dead Reckoning posted:really awful metaphor Sorry, it's hard to write a really good person on person analogy for apartheid.
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Jan 6, 2016 05:15
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rscott posted:I don't know if anyone else is watching the frontline show Netanyahu's War on PBS but it doesn't paint him in a good light at all, in a very personal way. Good.
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Jan 6, 2016 09:40
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MonsieurChoc posted:Good. Yeah hes an odious person but I feel like a lot of the problems with the I/P peace process are attributed to him personally and that lets a lot of other actors off the hook. Still don't know how Clinton, Obama and the state department haven't physically assaulted him yet though jfc
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Jan 6, 2016 13:45
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Dead Reckoning posted:That doesn't have anything to do with deliberately targeting civilians though, unless you want to argue that all Israeli citizens can be justly killed because of their government's policies. There is not only nothing wrong with killing civilians because of their government's policies, there's nothing wrong with killing civilians because of a third government's policies, as the bombing of Caen shows. So, the only real issue here is whether the status of being a "state" grants one moral immunity from killing civilians or not, which is frankly an absurd question in the absence of a divinely-inspired morality.
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Jan 6, 2016 16:14
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http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.695633quote:Israeli passengers on a recent Aegean Airlines flight from Greece to Israel forced the cabin crew to remove two Israeli Arabs from the flight before allowing it to take off, according to a report by Israel Radio.
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Jan 6, 2016 16:29
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The Knesset Education committee has met to discuss the banning of the book "Borderline" from school curriculums. The strongest support came from the Shas MK that headed the committee, who said that "We in Israel are fighting against assimilation, and the country is investing large amounts of resources on the project" and referred to the book as a "strategic" and "existential" "threat". An IDF soldier in the intelligence division has been sentenced to 45 months in jail for accessing the Nationalistic Crimes Unit's classified databases, looking up information on suspected Jewish extremists and planned operations and actions against those extremists, and then leaking all that information to Jewish extremist groups on an ongoing basis, warning them in advance of arrests and raids.
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Jan 6, 2016 21:10
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Main Paineframe posted:An IDF soldier in the intelligence division has been sentenced to 45 months in jail for accessing the Nationalistic Crimes Unit's classified databases, looking up information on suspected Jewish extremists and planned operations and actions against those extremists, and then leaking all that information to Jewish extremist groups on an ongoing basis, warning them in advance of arrests and raids. Free Johnathan Pollard 2: Johnathan Pollarder
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Jan 6, 2016 22:52
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Terrorizing Israel as a strategy is a lot larger than Hamas. The onus comes down on Israel to change its policies if your goal is for terrorist fighters from all over the Middle East to stop engaging in terrorist acts.
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Jan 7, 2016 00:49
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Maoist Pussy posted:Terrorizing Israel as a strategy is a lot larger than Hamas. The onus comes down on Israel to change its policies if your goal is for terrorist fighters from all over the Middle East to stop engaging in terrorist acts. How many terrorist fighters "from all over the Middle East" instead of specifically Israel and the territories it illegally occupies have been engaged in terrorizing Israel? I mean, if your point is that Hamas is exactly the same thing as Daesh and Israel needs to exterminate every last Arab across the entire world before we can experience peace at last, by all means, say so.
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Jan 7, 2016 01:14
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Hezbollah is having a lot of fun playing Israel with their current siege on Madaya in Syria.  Number 6 is especially funny since they surrounded the town with landmines, and when one goes off, they start blasting in that general direction, which killed a pregnant woman and her daughter the other day.
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Jan 7, 2016 14:56
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gently caress hezbollah but do you have any other sources for that other than that picture you posted?
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Jan 7, 2016 17:00
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Ultramega posted:gently caress hezbollah but do you have any other sources for that other than that picture you posted? It's from here. http://beirutpress.net/article/270202 Elijah Magnier reported it, and he's reliable.
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Jan 7, 2016 17:06
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Hezbollah's body count dwarfs Israel's.
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Jan 8, 2016 03:42
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Main Paineframe posted:Sounds like if they dropped rockets from their arsenal they would only be able to make one-third as many attacks, with no apparent improvement in the success rate of attacking soldiers. Nope, rockets disproportionately target civilians at a ~20:1 ratio. Mortars cause civilian deaths but mainly kill soldiers and I assume that at least some mortars were deliberately fired at civilian targets, which would obviously be something that would be stopped in these ideal circumstances and make the ratio even more favourable. Meanwhile tunnel attacks have only ever killed soldiers with no civilians being killed. Even without extra resources being poured into them, both these methods already kill more soldiers than rocket attacks have managed, which isn't hard seeing as 10,000 rockets fired over a decade and a half have managed to kill a single soldier at the cost of thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths in response. quote:The thing that stands against the arguments you're making is that if rockets weren't beneficial to anyone, why would anyone bother with them? Originally, you asked why Hamas launches rockets when you asserted that there was no benefit whatsoever to doing so. And I've answered you very simply - obviously Hamas wouldn't launch rockets if they thought there was no benefit to doing so or if they thought the downsides totally overwhelmed the benefits, so it naturally follows that at the very least they (and other Palestinian militant groups) believe that the benefits of rocket launches are worth the risks. Maybe you disagree, but that doesn't mean you're right and everyone else (ranging from internet commenters to the people actually involved on the ground) is wrong. Me having an opinion doesn't mean I'm right and people on the ground are wrong and I've never said that I have. Me being able to back up and explain my opinion with evidence and reasoning while you either get the facts wrong (above) or make meaningless points (below) or ignore the majority of the points I've made (not pictured) while your argument has basically devolved into vague inferences of some potential reasons Hamas has that you cannot explain or defend is what means that I'm right. Even if I'm not right, then based on your argument so far there's no reason to think I'm wrong. quote:The only thing that meets the criteria of being a "large attack" is Israel's invasions. Rocket attacks are also small attacks. Yes, that's not something that's being argued though and I'm not sure how it's meant to relate to anything. I hate to bring this up, but Dead Cosmonaut posted:I hate to bring this up, but This may come as a surprise to you but the Occupied Palestinian Territories are, well, occupied. I don't think it's possible to invade a country that you already occupy.
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Jan 8, 2016 09:24
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Kim Jong Il posted:Hezbollah's body count dwarfs Israel's. Doesn't seem to add up. What are you basing these figures off?
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Jan 8, 2016 09:28
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Arab lives don't count so it's however many Israelis hezbollah has killed to 0
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Jan 8, 2016 13:37
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It's weird that you're evaluating Hamas's attacks as if killing Israelis (either civilian or military) was the primary goal, when in fact it's just a means of shoring up popular support in Gaza. Effectiveness isn't the issue, it's about showing actual resistance to Israel. Which is why rocket and mortar attacks can't really be resolved with military force. No matter how hard the retaliation is, Hamas is still going to have rockets and mortars, and the will to use them will only grow stronger.
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Jan 8, 2016 14:39
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ANIME AKBAR posted:No matter how hard the retaliation is, Hamas is still going to have rockets and mortars, and the will to use them will only grow stronger. Israel loves when Hamas proves that Gaza is terrorism HQ against the Jews.
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Jan 8, 2016 14:49
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ANIME AKBAR posted:It's weird that you're evaluating Hamas's attacks as if killing Israelis (either civilian or military) was the primary goal, when in fact it's just a means of shoring up popular support in Gaza. Effectiveness isn't the issue, it's about showing actual resistance to Israel. Which is why rocket and mortar attacks can't really be resolved with military force. No matter how hard the retaliation is, Hamas is still going to have rockets and mortars, and the will to use them will only grow stronger. I'm not, I evaluated it on a number of levels and have even mentioned the effects of morale in a previous post. The people responding to me tend to only be challenging parts of my argument and its those bits I respond to. I'd also point out that I'm maintaining the point of view that militants should use almost every form of attack they have available, including mortars but excluding specifically rockets. The two are quite different and shouldn't be lumped in together as you've done in your post due to the inaccuracy of rockets making them ineffective weapons whose usage is automatically a war crime due to their disproportionate risk to innocent civilians. I don't see any particular reason why the militant groups' ability to lionise their deeds would be drastically weakened by concentrating on other forms of attack, especially when conspicuous options that the Palestinian public will see happening like mortars are still on the table (which seems to be the main point that makes rockets stand out in terms of influencing morale). If you think there is a particular reason they would then I'd like to hear it. On the other hand there are advantages that are fairly obvious and have been gone over quite a few times, with the main benefit not being the strategic effects (wow, killing 2 soldiers a year instead of 0.1!) but rather that this would stop the occurrence of war crimes which targeting civilians which will in turn have advantages in diplomacy, the propaganda/public perception of the conflict and Israel's counter-attacks. That's not to mention the moral basis for not committing war crimes.
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Jan 8, 2016 15:36
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team overhead smash posted:I don't see any particular reason why the militant groups' ability to lionise their deeds would be drastically weakened by concentrating on other forms of attack, especially when conspicuous options that the Palestinian public will see happening like mortars are still on the table (which seems to be the main point that makes rockets stand out in terms of influencing morale). If you think there is a particular reason they would then I'd like to hear it. On the other hand there are advantages that are fairly obvious and have been gone over quite a few times, with the main benefit not being the strategic effects (wow, killing 2 soldiers a year instead of 0.1!) but rather that this would stop the occurrence of war crimes which targeting civilians which will in turn have advantages in diplomacy, the propaganda/public perception of the conflict and Israel's counter-attacks. That's not to mention the moral basis for not committing war crimes. It's almost as if Gaza is entirely surrounded by belligerents, has its waters monitored, can not import many "real" weapons, and has to have caches of real weaponry available for the the next inevitable Israeli attack while still remaining relevant as an active (if restrained) participant in an armed conflict.
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Jan 8, 2016 16:17
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Kim Jong Il posted:Hezbollah's body count dwarfs Israel's. I'm not defending Hezbollah but I think that doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. If only by dint of the fact Israel, since it's founding as an actual country, has been around for a lot longer and has been an active belligerent to pretty much every single country surrounding it. When was the last time Hezbollah shot a civilian airliner out of the sky? Or kidnapped civilians for bargaining chips to ransom kidnapped soldiers back?
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Jan 8, 2016 17:04
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Kim Jong Il posted:Hezbollah's body count dwarfs Israel's. No it doesn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict Total (Palestinian Dead) 7978 (1620 under 18) Israeli Dead 1503 (142 under 18)
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Jan 8, 2016 17:08
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A Terrible Person posted:It's almost as if Gaza is entirely surrounded by belligerents, has its waters monitored, can not import many "real" weapons, and has to have caches of real weaponry available for the the next inevitable Israeli attack while still remaining relevant as an active (if restrained) participant in an armed conflict. If it was that hard to get mortar shells, they wouldn't have literally already fired thousands of mortars at Israel to date - less that with rockets but not off by a massive amount, maybe twice as many rockets are mortars. Israels rockets are also made up of a significant amount of "real" weapons because as well as homemade Qassam rockets they also make frequent use of professionally constructed Grads as well as rare use of other missiles like the Fajr. I beleive they're smuggled in through the Egyptian tunnels. Even if it was much much harder to get access to mortars and other weapons, it still wouldn't justify committing war crimes and attacking civilians.
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Jan 8, 2016 17:11
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team overhead smash posted:If it was that hard to get mortar shells, they wouldn't have literally already fired thousands of mortars at Israel to date - less that with rockets but not off by a massive amount, maybe twice as many rockets are mortars. Does that really follow? I could just as easily say that their large supply is due in part to the fact that they use rockets more frequently when firing in protest. Regardless, it hardly makes sense to throw away good weapons when you have a far larger enemy at your gates intent on fighting you for eternity. And, yes; Hamas and other rocket-firing groups are committing war crimes, not as though that really matters much.
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Jan 8, 2016 17:51
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A Terrible Person posted:Does that really follow? I could just as easily say that their large supply is due in part to the fact that they use rockets more frequently when firing in protest. "Good weapons"? We're talking about rockets, not good weapons. After firing about 10,000 rockets over 15 years they've killed a single IDF soldier last year and that was with one of the professionally made grad rockets too, not a qassam. It'd probably be more effective to just save up money and then order the local IDF barracks some takeaway pizzas as often as they can. Pretty sure the health effects of fatty food would be a more reliable killer than rockets. If you're going to ignore the moral case and fall back on the strategic benefits, there have to actually be strategic benefits for that to work.
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Jan 8, 2016 19:18
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CommieGIR posted:No it doesn't: Hezbollah has killed a shitload of people in Syria though. They uploaded pictures of themselves with the rocket system that was eventually used in the Ghouta attacks several weeks prior, as well. Which was really cool of them. I don't know if it's 8,000 but neither Israel or Hezbollah is above mass murder for cheap political gain.
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Jan 8, 2016 19:39
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It seems odd to condemn Hezbollah for having a higher body count than Israel, while not condemning Israel for having a larger body count than Palestine. It seems rather inconsistent.
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Jan 8, 2016 20:08
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team overhead smash posted:"Good weapons"? We're talking about rockets, not good weapons. After firing about 10,000 rockets over 15 years they've killed a single IDF soldier last year and that was with one of the professionally made grad rockets too, not a qassam. It'd probably be more effective to just save up money and then order the local IDF barracks some takeaway pizzas as often as they can. Pretty sure the health effects of fatty food would be a more reliable killer than rockets. I don't believe for a second that Hamas ever planned to defeat Israel by randomly firing off pissrockets and the occasional mortar from within Gaza. That's not their purpose. And way to bolster my own point: the rockets are garbage weapons and therefor have been fired off by the thousands... rather than wasting the good (i.e. effective/accurate) weapons.
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Jan 8, 2016 20:38
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As for the whole rockets discussion, it seems like many people on the "it's wrong for the Palestinians to shoot rockets" (and I don't necessarily disagree with this specific point) side of the argument forget that Israel is also composed of sentient human beings. They are not some mad dog that bears no moral responsibility for mauling you when provoked. So while shooting rockets is likely a bad idea from a moral and strategic perspective, it should not be viewed as a cause of Israeli retaliation. Israel, and only Israel, chooses to do the things it does. They are not forced to do these things by Palestinian actions. People often forget the fact that "X results in Y" does not imply "X is responsible for Y", especially when Y is the actions of another human being. Part of the reason the motives of people who focus on rocket attacks are called into question is that, at best, it represents some very skewed priorities. The strategic argument (Palestinians shouldn't shoot rockets because it provokes Israeli aggression) in particular is very strange. It's like looking at a situation where some criminals are holding people hostage and, when one of the hostages fights back, saying "what an idiot, why would the hostage do something so stupid," when the only reason the situation arose in the first place is due to the action undertaken by the criminals (who are also human beings who can make their own decisions). While such an attack certainly isn't pragmatic given the circumstances, it's pretty easy to understand why most people who be off-put when someone focuses on the actions of the victim. While the moral argument against them is obviously sound, it pales in comparison with the moral argument against Israeli actions and is usually focused upon very disproportionately to the harm the rockets actually cause. It is also blind to the fact that crimes committed by individuals under great stress/suffering, while still wrong, are at least more understandable than crimes committed by those in a position of authority/power (Israel). So while I agree when people speak of the rockets being immoral, it seems very misleading to focus on them independent of the context of the situation as a whole and Israel's actions (that is, it's very strange to talk about them without also mentioning the situation that gave rise to them - a situation entirely created by Israel). On the other side of this coin, however, the Palestinians' situation being created by Israel also does not mean that Palestinians bear no responsibility for committing war crimes, even if those war crimes are comparatively inconsequential and the situation prompting those war crimes was created by Israel. It certainly makes them less bad than Israel's own war crimes, but they're still not okay. It's just mostly pointless to spend time and effort condemning them, since they aren't the actions of an organized state and condemning them is even less likely to have an effect than condemning Israel. The Insect Court posted:It's always nice when other posters jump in to make my case for me: Not going to defend the first one, but as for the second "it's hard to blame them for doing ____" is not even remotely the same thing as saying "it is good they did ____." Normal human beings tend to sympathize with the actions of the weak when bullied by the strong, even if those actions might be counterproductive. quote:That right-wingers ranting about "thugs" and tide of black on white violence can attempt to point to actual individual incidents of violent street crime notwithstanding, their occasional recourse to real data points does not mean the narrative they attempt to weave is one infused with racism. But right-wing arguments are still dumb and bad, because 1. black people do not actually represent a notable threat to whites and 2. the crimes committed by whites and white-controlled governments against black people vastly outweigh those black people might commit. With Israel, the situation is reversed; Israel does cause a disproportionately great amount of harm to Palestinians and represent a real threat to them* (well, more than a threat since they've already done a bunch of harm). While the right-wing argument may contain true data points, its logic and overall argument is still clearly wrong. But both the data points *and* logic/argument are correct for the argument against Israel's behavior. Ultimately, the reason why right-wing arguments against "black culture" are wrong is not because the right-wingers are racist; it is because the arguments are wrong. It is not necessary to even mention their racism, because the argument itself can be easily debunked. The same goes for Israel. If the arguments of pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel (for lack of a better term) people are actually wrong, it should be possible to explain why without even needing to mention the fact that many antisemitic people share those views. And, unfortunately, due to the history of antisemitism in our world, there will always be antisemitic people clinging to any excuse to attack Jews. Using your logic, this means that it is literally impossible for Israel to ever be guilty of serious crimes, because the fact that antisemitic people would agree would mean that it can't be true. That is not valid reasoning. How in the world is this not obvious? I'm doing my best to make this is clear as humanly possible. *I'm going to preemptively address the "but Arabs outnumber Israel in the middle east and represent a threat" argument. This argument is ironically racist as all poo poo, since it implies there's some racial unity between Palestinians and other Arab countries, when this is not remotely the case. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Jan 8, 2016 |
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Jan 8, 2016 20:53
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A Terrible Person posted:I don't believe for a second that Hamas ever planned to defeat Israel by randomly firing off pissrockets and the occasional mortar from within Gaza. That's not their purpose. And way to bolster my own point: the rockets are garbage weapons and therefor have been fired off by the thousands... rather than wasting the good (i.e. effective/accurate) weapons. You're all over the place and seem to be making this poo poo up as you go along. A post ago you say we can't waste rockets because they're good weapons. Now you say they're terrible weapons... but you still can't stop using them because then Palestinians would be forced to use good effective weapons that they have in massive quantity and won't run out of and which also aren't inherent war crimes. And that would be bad because, y'know, reasons. Ytlaya posted:As for the whole rockets discussion, it seems like many people on the "it's wrong for the Palestinians to shoot rockets" (and I don't necessarily disagree with this specific point) side of the argument forget that Israel is also composed of sentient human beings. They are not some mad dog that bears no moral responsibility for mauling you when provoked. So while shooting rockets is likely a bad idea from a moral and strategic perspective, it should not be viewed as a cause of Israeli retaliation. Israel, and only Israel, chooses to do the things it does. They are not forced to do these things by Palestinian actions. People often forget the fact that "X results in Y" does not imply "X is responsible for Y", especially when Y is the actions of another human being. Israel chooses to do them, but I think we can still recognise that rockets are a cause of a certain type of attack with that type of attack being the big ones involving mass bombing and artillery shelling that causes hundreds or thousands of civilian casualties sometimes supported by a large ground invasion. Every big attack by Israel on Palestine large enough to warrant a name like Protective Edge, Cast lead, Pillar of Defense, Autumn Clouds, Summer Rain, Days of Penitence, etc has been in response to Palestinian rockets- both chronologically and as the stated explanation for Israel's actions. This isn't to say Israel are right to do so or justified or right in their response. It's simply recognising cause and effect. The rocket attacks are what cause Israel to choose to make their big rear end attacks which kill masses of Palestinians. The choice is still Israel's completely and totally in how if at all they respond and to me the only moral way would be to end their occupation and then seek redress as part of a truth and reconciliation programme, but as they don't seem willing to change tactics and do that any time soon. quote:Part of the reason the motives of people who focus on rocket attacks are called into question is that, at best, it represents some very skewed priorities. The strategic argument (Palestinians shouldn't shoot rockets because it provokes Israeli aggression) in particular is very strange. It's like looking at a situation where some criminals are holding people hostage and, when one of the hostages fights back, saying "what an idiot, why would the hostage do something so stupid," when the only reason the situation arose in the first place is due to the action undertaken by the criminals (who are also human beings who can make their own decisions). While such an attack certainly isn't pragmatic given the circumstances, it's pretty easy to understand why most people who be off-put when someone focuses on the actions of the victim. You have to remember that I'm bringing this up in terms of "I would like it very much like Palestinians to continue to try and kill lots of Israelis in these ways, but to leave out this one method" and that the main reasons I've given (though not necessarily the main reasons people have picked out from my argument and started discussions on) are a) The moral aspect because war crimes are simply wrong and b) The fact that stopping these war crimes would help the Palestinians. quote:While the moral argument against them is obviously sound, it pales in comparison with the moral argument against Israeli actions and is usually focused upon very disproportionately to the harm the rockets actually cause. It is also blind to the fact that crimes committed by individuals under great stress/suffering, while still wrong, are at least more understandable than crimes committed by those in a position of authority/power (Israel). So while I agree when people speak of the rockets being immoral, it seems very misleading to focus on them independent of the context of the situation as a whole and Israel's actions (that is, it's very strange to talk about them without also mentioning the situation that gave rise to them - a situation entirely created by Israel). Yeah, to be honest if there was a single pro-Israeli poster here who didn't seem completely disingenuous or like they're trolling then I'd be focused on turning their argument around. Instead the only serious posters around here in my eyes are pro-Palestinian ones. The willingness of people to try and defend or justify rocket attacks is my biggest bone of contention with other people who support Palestine. They're war crimes. They disproportionately kill civilians. Hell, they kill more children than they do soldiers. They're wrong and I find it a disgusting that anyone would support them. I find it even more disgusting that people would okay the indiscriminate shelling of thousands of Palestinian civilians, but I make that clear whenever it comes up in the thread and I consider the rockets an issue because I'm on the Palestinian side to the extent of donating money and having taken part in pro-Palestinian activism (part of demos, handing out leaflets, collecting signatures) and I don't want to be palling around with people who support war crimes. Despite my support for the Palestinians my support for them is rooted in a respect for human rights and so I can't turn a blind eye to lovely things my own side sometimes supports. People get into the "us vs them" mindset and try to justify any actions by the Palestinians. quote:On the other side of this coin, however, the Palestinians' situation being created by Israel also does not mean that Palestinians bear no responsibility for committing war crimes, even if those war crimes are comparatively inconsequential and the situation prompting those war crimes was created by Israel. It certainly makes them less bad than Israel's own war crimes, but they're still not okay. It's just mostly pointless to spend time and effort condemning them, since they aren't the actions of an organized state and condemning them is even less likely to have an effect than condemning Israel. I don't think my internet postings will really have much effect most ways, but a key part of this is because not just that Palestinian militants committing war crimes is bad because it disproportionately kills innocent Israeli men, women and children (which is still true) but that Palestinian militants committing war crimes is bad for the Palestinian people themselves and the cause of Palestinian freedom due to the diplomatic, military and moral blowback. Also if the responses so far had been "yeah, rockets are bad but I don't think we should focus on it" then the discussion would have stopped 20 posts ago because I agree completely. That's my point of view. However when people try and defend Palestinians committing war crimes, that becomes an issue I'm not going to let go of.
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Jan 9, 2016 01:30
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A Terrible Person posted:It's almost as if Gaza is entirely surrounded by belligerents, has its waters monitored, can not import many "real" weapons, and has to have caches of real weaponry available for the the next inevitable Israeli attack while still remaining relevant as an active (if restrained) participant in an armed conflict. This is the original post you're drawing from when you say this: team overhead smash posted:You're all over the place and seem to be making this poo poo up as you go along. A post ago you say we can't waste rockets because they're good weapons. Now you say they're terrible weapons... but you still can't stop using them because then Palestinians would be forced to use good effective weapons that they have in massive quantity and won't run out of and which also aren't inherent war crimes. And that would be bad because, y'know, reasons. Perhaps I should have italicized "real" the first time? Perhaps I should have typed "those" before my second use of real? In either case, my point was that Hamas and other groups mostly use lovely handmade pissrockets that aren't aimed at anything in particular as a sign of defensive aggression, an act of defiance, and (when the Iron Dome actually works) a reminder to the world that they're trapped in a ghetto and don't really have a viable military response to their plight; the actually useful munitions (read as: purchased rather than homemade shells/rockets/etc.) are generally saved for countering the inevitable Israeli bombing campaign. Whether or not they constitute war crimes is irrelevant. They most certainly do, but it doesn't matter since the entire quagmire is a human rights disaster story. Pointing fingers at the oppressed while demanding they be blameless Paladins in their fight for basic necessities is ridiculous in a situation where physical might and the right connections are the only basis for justice and "fair" international conflict. *edit* added bolding and italics just to be sure. *edit2* ... A Terrible Person fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Jan 9, 2016 |
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Jan 9, 2016 02:59
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So it seems obvious there's a sizeable contingent of anti-Israeli posters who are willing to condone rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. Would any of you like to contribute to the discussion with your opinion on suicide bombings? It seems that the arguments in favor of shooting rockets at Israeli population centers, such as they are, also would apply to suicide bombers. And on a related note, does the same moral calculus apply to attacks outside of Israel by Palestinian groups? Is anyone going to defend Munich or the Achille Lauro?
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Jan 9, 2016 10:27
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The Insect Court posted:So it seems obvious there's a sizeable contingent of anti-Israeli posters who are willing to condone rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. If this is true, and the moderators condone and encourage these posters while probating and banning dissenting voices means the moderators of this forum are anti-semitic. Congratulations, moderators, you have made a safe-space for anti-semitism. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 9, 2016 10:34
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The Insect Court posted:So it seems obvious there's a sizeable contingent of anti-Israeli posters who are willing to condone rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.
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Jan 9, 2016 10:35
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At the end of the day, it comes down to "which people will own the land?" It's pretty obvious that Israel will. Vast populations have migrated across the earth. The United States is almost entirely populated by migrants and the descendants of migrants. The best course of action for the Palestinians is to work to build new lives elsewhere. They're fighting a fight they can't possibly ever win. It's folly.
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Jan 9, 2016 11:22
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A Terrible Person posted:Perhaps I should have italicized "real" the first time? Perhaps I should have typed "those" before my second use of real? In either case, my point was that Hamas and other groups mostly use lovely handmade pissrockets that aren't aimed at anything in particular as a sign of defensive aggression, an act of defiance, and (when the Iron Dome actually works) a reminder to the world that they're trapped in a ghetto and don't really have a viable military response to their plight; the actually useful munitions (read as: purchased rather than homemade shells/rockets/etc.) are generally saved for countering the inevitable Israeli bombing campaign. You're once again pulling poo poo out of your rear end to try and justify war crimes and killing civilians, which is abominable and sickening. Mortars and rockets, even the ones they purchase (and I'm not sure if they even do purchase them rather than them just being provided by Iran and other backers), do not in any way counter bombing campaigns as you claim. Even the professionally made rockets are too inaccurate to hit any specific target and mortars have a range of a few kilometres, useful for taking potshots at the surrounding outposts, checkpoints and patrols but utterly useless for trying to stop a plane being launched 50 km away or a howitzer that's firing from 15 km away. At best all that saving up rockets does is allow them to try and kill even more civilians as payback for their civilians getting killed. Whether they're war crimes is not irrelevant. It is awful that they are trying to kill innocent civilians. It's not the worst war crime being committed, but you don't get to commit war crimes if you can make the excuse that some other guy is committing them worse. The fact that you try and brush war crimes away with such a cursory argument and the fact you only apply human rights to one side shows you either haven't thought this through or are incredibly biased. Hell, it even works on a strategic level as there is no way Palestinian militants are winning in terms of real might while in terms of the international public and political support not committing war crimes puts them in a much better position. Not to mention the saw international military laws which make Palestinian rocket attacks illegal are the same ones that make Israel's shelling of Palestinian civilians illegal. You also can't condone one without implicitly condoning the other, unless you're going to take the racist stance that some things are only crimes when done by a certain racial/religious group. The Insect Court posted:So it seems obvious there's a sizeable contingent of anti-Israeli posters who are willing to condone rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. No, the same arguement doesn't apply. Rockets are a war crime because they are so inaccurate that they are indiscriminate. As the Israeli population is mostly civilian, some wildly fired rocket will be far more likely to hit a civilian than a military target. This means that the damage they inflict is disproportionately against civilian targets whether or not the user is trying to hit military targets or not, which is what makes them war crimes. With suicide bombs it is possible to discriminate and you can do attacks which inflict entirely or largely military casualties/damage. Take the Kerem Shalom suicide bombing in 2008. A suicide bomber detonated their bomb at an Israeli outpost and I believe all the casualties were military. It was a legitimate attack. Now it's possible to make an attack with a suicide bomber that is a war crime, detonating it in a crowded market, but that's down to the choice of the bomber you could make the same argument for a gun or a knife. You can choose to shoot/stab an IDF soldier or you can choose to shoot/stab a civilian. The use of suicide bombs, guns, knives and such aren't inherently a war crime like rockets are, they can be used legitimately or as part of a war crime depending on the choice of the user. That said personally I wouldn't recommend them because I think suicide attacks instantly repulse most western observers and international support is a key factor for the Palestinians so it would be strategically unwise. Even if they were done against entirely legitimate military target the thing most people would take home is "Palestinians = suicide bombers = dirty evil terrorists"
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Jan 9, 2016 11:24
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The Insect Court posted:So it seems obvious there's a sizeable contingent of anti-Israeli posters who are willing to condone rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. like the rocket attacks from Palestine are war crimes (mostly in a technical sense because they don't actually end up causing damage to either the military or civilian targets they are incapable of discriminating between) but I'm not sure how that makes bombing Palestinian towns and killing hundreds of civilians OK?
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Jan 9, 2016 11:40
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XMNN posted:like the rocket attacks from Palestine are war crimes (mostly in a technical sense because they don't actually end up causing damage to either the military or civilian targets they are incapable of discriminating between) but I'm not sure how that makes bombing Palestinian towns and killing hundreds of civilians OK? How many Palestinians civilians is Israel allowed to kill before it becomes a real war crime instead of just a "technical" war crime like Palestinian rockets?
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Jan 9, 2016 12:01
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It isn't possible to defend Israel's actions; so the pro-Israel posters are merely reduced to attack pro-Palestinian posters, usually with the cudgel of antisemitism. Yeah, Qasam rockets are bad because their lack of precision means they're more likely to hit a civilian than a military target. The militants who shoot them don't even bother attempting to aim at anything in particular. Let's look at the past year: List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2015 What do we get from this? 1. A number of rockets fell short and landed in Gaza instead of crossing over into Israel 2. Most rockets that went into Israel fell in empty areas 3. None of the rockets launched this year injured or killed anyone in Israel But rocket attacks are a war crime and therefore Palestinians are bad and deserve eternal oppression forever.
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Jan 9, 2016 12:16
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