Israel-Gaza war

[Wiswylfen]

Could any of the people changing their avatars and/or usernames in support of Israel despite having no connection to it explain their reasoning for me? Doing it for Gaza makes some sense if you believe that Israel is committing a genocide (see also: the outpouring of support in the form of such changes for the Armenians over the past few years). But there’s neither that nor a ‘plucky little Belgium’ sort of thing going for it. Anyway: please?

[Wiswylfen]

Could any of the people changing their avatars and/or usernames in support of Israel despite having no connection to it explain their reasoning for me? Doing it for Gaza makes some sense if you believe that Israel is committing a genocide (see also: the outpouring of support in the form of such changes for the Armenians over the past few years). But there’s neither that nor a ‘plucky little Belgium’ sort of thing going for it. Anyway: please?

Israel supporters would say that Israel was the victim of a genocidal attack on 10/7, so it’s the same logic.

Sure, that makes sense. At which point they would also be counting the Israeli intervention in Gaza as genocidal. So then it becomes a matter of supporting a government that is, by such logic, committing genocide against a people who did not (unless by such logic 9/11 was a legitimate military attack against legitimate military targets) (so "you started it!", if someone thought that was an excuse, wouldn't work anyway) during a war against a group that did. On second thought, I don't think it makes sense at all.

[Wiswylfen]

Could any of the people changing their avatars and/or usernames in support of Israel despite having no connection to it explain their reasoning for me? Doing it for Gaza makes some sense if you believe that Israel is committing a genocide (see also: the outpouring of support in the form of such changes for the Armenians over the past few years). But there’s neither that nor a ‘plucky little Belgium’ sort of thing going for it. Anyway: please?

Israel supporters would say that Israel was the victim of a genocidal attack on 10/7, so it’s the same logic.

Sure, that makes sense. At which point they would also be counting the Israeli intervention in Gaza as genocidal. So then it becomes a matter of supporting a government that is, by such logic, committing genocide against a people who did not (unless by such logic 9/11 was a legitimate military attack against legitimate military targets) (so "you started it!", if someone thought that was an excuse, wouldn't work anyway) during a war against a group that did. On second thought, I don't think it makes sense at all.

They don't count the Israeli intervention in Gaza as genocidal though.

I'm being generous and assuming consistency in their logic rather than it being an afterthought to supporting a particular 'team' because ??.

[Wiswylfen]

If progressives really wanted a ceasefire they would pass a resolution demanding that Hamas release the Jewish hostages or else military aid to Israel will be quadrupled.

What they actually want is for Israel to unilaterally surrender, because that will appease their frothing anti-semite base, many of whom are about one logical step away from literally becoming al-Qaeda.

Yeah OK. Are you going to answer my question?

[Wiswylfen]

If progressives really wanted a ceasefire they would pass a resolution demanding that Hamas release the Jewish hostages or else military aid to Israel will be quadrupled.

What they actually want is for Israel to unilaterally surrender, because that will appease their frothing anti-semite base, many of whom are about one logical step away from literally becoming al-Qaeda.

Yeah OK. Are you going to answer my question?

Are you talking to the right person?  I've been out of this thread for a few pages and have no idea what question you're referring to.

*class is debatable since in some cases the class is small enough that it could be argued that rather than being primarily composed of innocents, a sufficiently sizable share of the members of the class were able to coordinate towards an objective that could be considered hostile, thus making an attack on said class a civil conflict rather than a genocide.  For example, the French Revolution's class cleansing of the Bourbon aristocracy.

...

or the Camodian Genocide:
A) The Khmer Rouge made it publicly known that they intended to completely eliminate anyone who had, prior to year zero, belonged to: the wealthy, the intelligentsia, the capitalists, the landowners (all class groups), Christians (religious group), Vietnamese (ethnic group), etc.
B) The Khmer Rouge had complete control of Cambodia which gave them the means to accomplish this
C) The Khmer Rouge did in fact slaughter several million people while explicitly targeting said groups

Even setting aside that your excuse has nothing in itself to it, I might point out that there were several hundred thousand aristocrats. Pick one or the other.

Did the Khmer Rouge commit genocide? Of course they did. It cannot seriously be argued, however, that the murder of capitalists and landowners constituted that: people being killed does not in itself a genocide make, as you yourself admit. Their targeting of specific ethnic groups—more than just the Vietnamese, by the way—was genocidal; that was not. One moment you are complaining about the abuse of the term ‘genocide’, the next you are abusing it yourself. Again, which is it?

[Wiswylfen]

That question isn't even from this thread.  Please don't take your slap fights across multiple threads.  Keep them siloed.

Indeed it is not (just a directly-related one): a shame about that 'out of this thread' excuse. Anyway, a question that you are not able to answer adequately is not a slap fight--and even if it were, I do not think you are in any sort of position to be giving such advice.

[Wiswylfen]

Could any of the people changing their avatars and/or usernames in support of Israel despite having no connection to it explain their reasoning for me? Doing it for Gaza makes some sense if you believe that Israel is committing a genocide (see also: the outpouring of support in the form of such changes for the Armenians over the past few years). But there’s neither that nor a ‘plucky little Belgium’ sort of thing going for it. Anyway: please?

Israel supporters would say that Israel was the victim of a genocidal attack on 10/7, so it’s the same logic.

Sure, that makes sense. At which point they would also be counting the Israeli intervention in Gaza as genocidal. So then it becomes a matter of supporting a government that is, by such logic, committing genocide against a people who did not (unless by such logic 9/11 was a legitimate military attack against legitimate military targets) (so "you started it!", if someone thought that was an excuse, wouldn't work anyway) during a war against a group that did. On second thought, I don't think it makes sense at all.

They don't count the Israeli intervention in Gaza as genocidal though.

I'm being generous and assuming consistency in their logic rather than it being an afterthought to supporting a particular 'team' because ??.

Hamas clearly states and acts on its intentions to kill Jews. Israel is fighting to eliminate Hamas whilst protecting civilian lives as much as possible. It's not even close to moral equivalency between the two. Accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians is like accusing the WW2 Allies of genocide against Germans...

We did. After the end of the war, two million Germans were killed and many millions more displaced without regard for whether or not they had supported the Nazis. There is little point arguing over whether or not Israel is 'protecting civilian lives' (or even attempting to) when that is clearly not the case and I doubt even Israel's supporters sincerely believe it (though there do seem to be some true believers, generally those who will also go so far as to defend the murder of released hostages surrendering--if that's the right word--to the IDF).

At that point it becomes a question of intent. And it is a perfectly legitimate point of view to look at the statements public and private of the government and military and conclude that, yes, Israel is in fact committing a genocide.

[Wiswylfen]

Will be interesting to see which Dems have a conscious.

I'm guessing around 45+ of them, minus Bernie, Warren, Markey, and a few strays!

Why do you, Vosem, and others in the pro-Israel crowd refuse to acknowledge the fact that Israel, like pretty much all states in history, can, has, and have committed human rights abuses during war? Do you seriously believe Israel can do no wrong?

This is another one of those linguistic games where, similar to "genocide", you guys are going to speak out of one side of your mouth to say that "human rights abuse" means the wanton slaughter of innocents, torture, rape, and whatever other heinous and deplorable crime you want to accuse Israel of committing, but then out the other side of your mouth you'll say that, like, Israel refusing to release aid packages of food on one occasion (regardless of context) is a "human rights abuse."  And the point is to get us to say "well yes that does meet the technical definition of a human rights abuse, so Israel is committing a human rights abuse" so you can go "AHA!  You admit we were right all along, Israel IS committing human rights abuses!" where now you're using "human rights abuse" to refer to the heinous crimes Israel isn't committing, but which you're grouping under the same definition.

Again, again, again, I have been saying this again and again and again, over and over again, once more, again and again, throughout this thread.  Can we please stop with the pseudo-lawyer crap where you guys are just trying to twist Israel's actions to meet some definition of some loaded thought-terminating term or another?  Can you talk about what Israel is actually doing?  Can you discuss those activities on their actual merits rather than bickering about whether or not they meet some definition of some term that, under some other circumstances, can be used to indicate that a heinous crime has been committed?  Can you just say "Israel is doing X and that's bad because Y" rather than trying to hide behind layer after layer of obfuscation and dictionary game?

Setting aside the fact that all of those count as human rights abuses ("grouping under the same definition", as you say) and nobody can seriously deny that Israel is committing the first two, not that it deserves to be set aside, linguistic games? I think definitions are pretty important things, actually. Otherwise you throw serious (hardly 'thought-terminating' in my opinion) terms like 'genocide' around without actually understanding what it means and making bizarre exceptions that don't even have "I like them, so, you know" going for them.

[Wiswylfen]

Full incorporation of the West Bank is almost certainly the only way to ensure Israel's long term survival– if another state were allowed to form in the West Bank, even if there is a peace treaty in the short term, the geographic reality would effectively make it a Sudetenland striking at the heart of a much more indefensible Israel. There's no way that the creation of a state on high ground within ten miles of almost all Israeli cities should even be seen as an option to be contemplated, really.

The question is what the best way of going about West Bank annexation would be. That's hard to say.

Are we antisemitic if we disagree with this one too?

[Wiswylfen]

Do you remember how much you admired the rapists and child kidnappers from Hamas on October 7.

You were calling them freedom fighters and cheering them on with glee.

Palestinians have the right to fight and resist apartheid state Israël, in fact they should, and everyone who does is a freedom fighter. They have my support. The oppression needs to end, and no one is interested in peace & diplomacy from the international community.

It's a series of deliberate massacres of civilians. No one has a right to do that.

You justify genocide

That's far worse than anything i've ever done. Period. And i've explainded/apologized/defended for that comment a million time. Perhaps the forum should start calling people out who get away with condoning genocide. Y'all have more blood on your hands than I have and take pride in the killing of muslims, like some kind of trophy.

Meclazine's statements and conduct in general aside, I don't know how you can 'explain' or 'defend' that comment.

[Wiswylfen]

Do you remember how much you admired the rapists and child kidnappers from Hamas on October 7.

You were calling them freedom fighters and cheering them on with glee.

Palestinians have the right to fight and resist apartheid state Israël, in fact they should, and everyone who does is a freedom fighter. They have my support. The oppression needs to end, and no one is interested in peace & diplomacy from the international community.

It's a series of deliberate massacres of civilians. No one has a right to do that.

You justify genocide

That's far worse than anything i've ever done. Period. And i've explainded/apologized/defended for that comment a million time. Perhaps the forum should start calling people out who get away with condoning genocide. Y'all have more blood on your hands than I have and take pride in the killing of muslims, like some kind of trophy.

Meclazine's statements and conduct in general aside, I don't know how you can 'explain' or 'defend' that comment.

If your country is illegally occupied, why should one not resist and fight back?

I mean "the occupied" is being framed as the terrorist. This is similar to the nazis occupying foreign countries as well.

The question of whether or not Gaza was under occupation is irrelevant to this: a terrorist organisation attacked Israel--by both partition and armistice definition--and, targeting civilians, committed crimes against humanity. The military aspect, such as it existed, was secondary (had it been primary and had the post-attack orders not been 'die' it probably would have been both a tactical and strategic victory for Hamas--but that hypothetical reinforces the point that it was a terrorist attack against civilians).

If you want to make a Nazi comparison then sure--it would also have been wrong for partisans to go into the Rhineland and start massacring civilians.

[Wiswylfen]

https://twitter.com/AmichaiChikli/status/1753376889232662889

[Wiswylfen]

https://twitter.com/AmichaiChikli/status/1753376889232662889

Good to see politicians picking up the similarities between ceding the Sudetenland to Bohemian German control vs ceding the Gaza Strip and West Bank to Palestinian Arab control. Sadly I doubt Western leaders will be swayed away from their "Palestinian state" advocacy.

You are certainly an excellent fit for the SDP!

[Wiswylfen]

It's extraordinary how you conceptualise "the Arabs" as one monolithic entity... it's a staggering form of racism if anything.

And I'm not naive enough to think the Arab world has huge cultural issues at this point in time. But you're the most blinkered poster on this thread, and Vosem is a regular contributor to it.

Don't worry, this isn't limited to the Arabs: he thinks that recognising people who murder civilians as terrorists is racist. Actually, undoubtedly one of the worst posters on this site.

[Wiswylfen]

It's tempting as it is to assume the current events in Gaza are a one-off blip in an otherwise long running conflict, the death toll in this instance is truly staggering and not at comporable to the past. Hamas terrorism on October 7th was of course responsible for starting the current conflict, by getting rid of any Israeli opposition for the current campagin and people who celebrated it as some glorious decolonail strike are more vacuumes but the  that does change the reality of current events.

More people have been killed in the last 6 months in Gaza by the IDF  than have been killed for the past 50 years of the conflict prior. So many people seem to to be trying to pretend this distinction doesn't matter but the scale of the campagin in Gaza is horrific and there's no actual end in sight for the conflict.  There's no actual proposal for a long term end to the conflict.

For those who are supportive of continuing the war, just how many palestianian deaths are acceptable for elimating hamas ?. The way people like Mr X, Vosem and Patzer act, they seem to think that killing every single resident in Gaza is worth it if it eliminates Hamas.

It would be one thing to have bombed them for a continual campagin of drone strikes and raids into Gaza to eliminate the Hamas leadership as well as a tightening of the existing blockade but the current plan of discriminate carpet bombing has no point but revenge.

Please show me where I have ever advocated “killing every single resident in Gaza.”   

I’m waiting…

It's a matter of revealed preferences, isn't it? I mean, what you *say* your views are is irrelevant: you talk of your "distaste for the ultra-partisans on either side in the United States" one moment, then the next you're defending Israel on the premise that actually maybe it was 20,000 dead and not 25,000 dead. And also accusing people on this forum of wanting to 'finish the Holocaust' and 'supporting rape and mass murder' for being 'anti-Israel' (before retreating from it and saying actually it was a social experiment) (one difference between your post and Dule's btw is that you said 'posters'; another is that his was and is true).

Anyway I do like that you're going after afleitch. Mote and beam.

[Wiswylfen]

Trump voters aren't so "America First" when it comes to Israel.

https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1765055486926201084?t=KRWw3Ert3y2Hp1B6T...

Many such cases! So-called 'patriots' who place the interests of a foreign state above those of their own. Not just an American thing, but American 'conservatism' is especially plagued by it.

Waleed Shahid is a jerkoff.  This is an extremely blatant push poll.  "Experts have said" something that isn't true.  "Attacks on the people of Gaza" is an obviously biased way to frame a war.

I just know we're going to keep getting this annoying manufactured push-poll result shoved at us from now until the end of the war though, because that's what progressives do.

"Attacks on the people of Gaza" is a basic statement of reality.

Indeed, you'd get a different answer if it was "war against Hamas".

That would be a rather different world. The Israeli government and military have made their intent perfectly clear many times, literally openly stating it: why do Israel's defenders on here try to deny it?

Can the pro-Palestine people please explain to me why Hamas should face no consequences for their actions?

What a question! Here's a more intellectually honest one for you: can the pro-Israel people please explain to me why thousands of children should die?

[Wiswylfen]

Can the pro-Palestine people please explain to me why Hamas should face no consequences for their actions?

What a question! Here's a more intellectually honest one for you: can the pro-Israel people please explain to me why thousands of children should die?

it might be honest, but it's also superfluous since the answer is so blatantly obvious:
because you can't conquer and occupy Gaza without substantial civilian casualties, and full Israeli control of Gaza is a prerequisite for destroying Hamas

'Substantial civilian casualties' aren't an unfortunate consequence; they're a deliberate choice. The destruction of homes and tower blocks—this is a war crime, by the way—is an intentional punishment of noncombatants for not overthrowing Hamas or something (we might remember that the Israeli government has done far more to support Hamas, in an attempt to undermine the State of Palestine, than Gazan civilians).

You might dare venture, given all the public statements from the Israeli government and military, that this also conveniently helps out on the genocide/'ethnic cleansing' side of things.

Because in the absence of a campaign to destroy the government of Gaza, many many more people would ultimately die? Your attitude ultimately reduces to "fighting a war is never justified", and I don't really believe that you (or the vast majority of people who say things like this, for that matter) hold it consistently. Why shouldn't Ukraine just surrender to Russia (this would've saved many more children, incidentally, in Mariupol), and why shouldn't Iraq have just surrendered to Da'esh?

This is not actually the crux of your objection to the Israeli campaign, so please spare us the histrionics.

That I'm not particularly friendly towards Israel is no secret: surprisingly, I have no time for a state that we are told is our ally yet commemorates terrorists who murdered civilians and soldiers from our country in cold blood, and sells arms to aggressors against us because their PM has a sick, personal interest in British soldiers dying.

Nevertheless, my objection to killing children for not single-handedly overthrowing Hamas (lol)/going to the artificial island in the Mediterranean is not some matter of absolute pacifism, or even really related to that.

Why didn’t the US just assassinate Hirohito instead of going to war with Japan and causing over a hundred thousand civilian casualties?

Why didn’t the Allies just assassinate Hitler and Nazi leadership instead of participating in a world war that caused millions of deaths?

Why don't the children just round up all the Hamas fighters, resurrect the hostages we shot dead waving a white flag, and move to the artificial island in the Mediterranean instead of forcing us to bomb them as punishment for not doing so? It is quite something that anyone backing Israel would try this one.

[Wiswylfen]

If that's true, then he needs to be prosecuted.

He will probably be treated as a hero by the same people who should be prosecuting him. Or at best they'll just ignore it.

He certainly won't face consequences, I'd wager a solid majority of Israelis agree with what he did.

If that's true, then why do you think that is?

What did you mean by this?

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers

Some pretty solid numbers coming out here.
Very strong negative correlation between men killed and women killed(although I do find this believable)

No correlation between children and women killed per day which doesn't make any sense.

Very tight linear line of growth of killed people killed per day in the first few weeks with no variation.

Ultimately the numbers are reliable enough for the Israeli government and military to use them internally with little dispute. "By historical standards of urban warfare, where combatants are embedded above and below into civilian population centers, this is a remarkable and successful effort to prevent unnecessary loss of life while fighting an implacable enemy that protects itself with civilians."--utterly pathetic. "Actually the military which was formed out of terrorist groups whose atrocities are still celebrated is the most humane in history ." Yeah OK!

3) His administration will not be stacked with racists who fantasize about committing genocide

Wow it sure is a good thing that they are not in a position to actually commit a genocide then is it not. Still no answer to that.

[Wiswylfen]

I like how we've gone from "Hamas' figures are totally believable, they've always been right, the UN [totally not riddled with Hamas sympathisers] said so."  to " Yeah Hamas lies through its teeth, but Israel bad".

Israel sold arms to the Argentines because Menachim Begin had a horrible little obsession with British soldiers being killed because his terrorist friends got what they deserved, his successor Netanyahu celebrates bombings that killed British soldiers and civilian non-combatants alike, and on the Atlas forum you never cease to worship it. You really are the perfect example of a certain section of the British right.

[Wiswylfen]

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers

Some pretty solid numbers coming out here.
Very strong negative correlation between men killed and women killed(although I do find this believable)

No correlation between children and women killed per day which doesn't make any sense.

Very tight linear line of growth of killed people killed per day in the first few weeks with no variation.

Ultimately the numbers are reliable enough for the Israeli government and military to use them internally with little dispute.

Ultimately the Israeli government using those numbers with little dispute is example number million of Western governments and civil organizations using made-up authoritarian numbers with little dispute even when that actively warps their perception of the world, like how the CIA used basically made-up Soviet statistics about their economy in the 1980s, basically everyone including Western governments and media organizations uses Chinese statistics that the Chinese government doesn't even believe, and the populations and economic sizes of many African countries are exaggerated.

This is because lower-level officials in authoritarian systems are virtually always incentivized to exaggerate how many people they rule, to encourage the center to disperse them more resources, and almost always incentivized to exaggerate how well their economy is doing, so that the center will respect them. It is not just that casualty figures in Gaza are exaggerated (though this is certainly true) -- it is that any population or economic figures originating from any authoritarian government are likely to be exaggerated for reasons fundamental to how authoritarianism works. Westerners accept these numbers -- much as how they accept the entire Palestinian narrative, and once upon a time the Soviet narrative -- mostly out of ignorance and groupthink, but, yes, to some extent out of malice.

You forgot the part where the IDF are well aware of roughly how many people they (will) kill. It's not a secret, just something most people on this forum (not you of course!) would like to ignore because the collection of information on and deliberate targeting of civilian buildings to maximise suffering conflicts somewhat with the laughably pathetic attempts to pretend that the Israeli military is the most humane in history or whatever. Again, they would seem to align well enough to be used internally. A rather different situation, as I'm sure you'll recognise.

Mainly though it was a targeted jab at the excellent logic which would see the Israeli government and military designated as 'Hamas supporters' by one of their biggest defenders on this forum so don't focus on it too much.

I like how we've gone from "Hamas' figures are totally believable, they've always been right, the UN [totally not riddled with Hamas sympathisers] said so."  to " Yeah Hamas lies through its teeth, but Israel bad".

Israel sold arms to the Argentines because Menachim Begin had a horrible little obsession with British soldiers being killed because his terrorist friends got what they deserved, his successor Netanyahu celebrates bombings that killed British soldiers and civilian non-combatants alike, and on the Atlas forum you never cease to worship it. You really are the perfect example of a certain section of the British right.

What, the victories in democratic elections that they deserved? This feels like complaining that the UK sold weapons to Jordan used to kill Israelis (...in fact in the 1940s they sent fighter pilots); more provocatively it's like complaining that the US armed the Afghan mujahideen, or that the Soviet Union armed and fed Germany between 1939-1941. The world turns and yesterday's alignments cease to be relevant. (And surely you've gotten enough revenge by funding UNRWA?)

Part of me wants to complain that you don't seem as upset by the Japanese government maintaining Yasukuni, or the French government maintaining the Arc de Triomphe (both of which are pretty aggressive commemorations of, uh, killing British troops), but then maybe you are upset by those things. I was kind of entertained to learn that some of your countrymen are scandalized by South Carolina memorializing Francis Marion as a hero, which does not strike me as something incredibly insulting or relevant to the 21st century. This kind of attitude is just a way to keep everyone hating everyone else forever.

My thoughts align more with Lind's actually—some hero that takes up arms only for his own blood feud. Not sure about the idea that Francis Marion was a hero because he owned slaves, but I do appreciate the 'Anglo-Saxon' comment: believe the author's people spent a few years fighting a war against us (I note that I used that automatically) decrying us as Anglo-Saxons. Mel Gibson's fellow unassimilated Irish-Americans, on the other hand, claim the victory of those fighting for their rights as Englishmen for themselves—when they're not getting mad about the idea of supporting us against Hitler, that is.

Which neatly transitions into the 'victories in democratic elections' the Israeli right won on ethnic resentment (vs the hangings they got for being murderous scum), the sort of thing which is of course indicative of a healthy society. The British government explicitly did not sell weapons to Jordan to kill Israeli soldiers, which is an extraordinarily magnanimous gesture given that the Israeli soldiers Jordan was fighting against had a few years earlier been murderous terrorists targeting British soldiers. But, well, given your UNRWA comment, it seems you'll buy any propaganda Israel puts out, so it's little use.

Unlike you (?) I don't particularly mind grudges, though when an act of terror is still actively celebrated it's a bit doubtful it could be one on our end, but my opinion is separate to that: if a grudge is held against us and a state is therefore irrationally hostile to us (which Israel is), then we should recognise that for what it is and respond appropriately. If Japanese right-wingers celebrating and glorifying war criminals (notice that I do not care about the celebration of military victories or remembrance of the dead who, if they fought, did so honorably) were calling us racist for not supporting (hypothetically) Japan invading South Korea and carrying out a genocide and sections of the British right were backing them I might have an opinion about that.

[Wiswylfen]

What did you mean by this?

"If a solid majority of Israelis agree with the murder of unarmed Palestinians by their soldiers, why do you think that is?"

Thanks for confirming.

If Japanese right-wingers celebrating and glorifying war criminals (notice that I do not care about the celebration of military victories or remembrance of the dead who, if they fought, did so honorably) were calling us racist for not supporting (hypothetically) Japan invading South Korea and carrying out a genocide and sections of the British right were backing them I might have an opinion about that.

There's no hypothetical about it. Japan did precisely that in 1910, with the "genocide" more being an attempt to destroy Korean culture. We allied with them in the First World War:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule

Yes thank you for telling me. This is a modern-day hypothetical scenario (happening in 2024) in which Japan decided some time ago to take back the Japonic homeland or whatever. A Hamasesque terrorist group ruling Busan attacks Tsushima and it continues from there. Hence the 'hypothetically' and 'South Korea'.

[Wiswylfen]

I get what you're driving at here, but it is very tacky to compare the Jewish relationship with the Southern Levant in 1948 (or at any other time for that matter) to the Japanese relationsihp with the Korean Peninsula today (or at any time after the Battle of Sekigahara for that matter).

I mean I'm not really driving at anything because it's a cheap and undetailed hypothetical to get something actually equivalent rather than something that isn't equivalent in a post full of lies about how Britain "sold weapons to Jordan used to kill Israelis".

[Wiswylfen]

I get what you're driving at here, but it is very tacky to compare the Jewish relationship with the Southern Levant in 1948 (or at any other time for that matter) to the Japanese relationsihp with the Korean Peninsula today (or at any time after the Battle of Sekigahara for that matter).

I mean I'm not really driving at anything because it's a cheap and undetailed hypothetical to get something actually equivalent rather than something that isn't equivalent in a post full of lies about how Britain "sold weapons to Jordan used to kill Israelis".

Britain did sell weapons to Jordan that were used against Israel. Like the Hawker Hunter jet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Jordanian_Air_Force

As you will note, the conflicts being referred to were all ongoing at the time of weapons being provided and that was the basis for discussion. If you're going to miss the point—a pretty obvious one given that, you know, Britain itself sold arms to Argentina before the war!—I at least expect more than this.

[Wiswylfen]

I assume the reason that people defending Israel's actions are still allowed to post in this thread is that while "indiscriminate killing of civilians ... will not be tolerated", there is no such rule for supporting the deliberate and intentional killing of civilians.

"Compared to previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current war — which Israel has named “Operation Iron Swords,” and which began in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7 — has seen the army significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. These include private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as “power targets” (“matarot otzem”).

The bombing of power targets, according to intelligence sources who had first-hand experience with its application in Gaza in the past, is mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society: to “create a shock” that, among other things, will reverberate powerfully and “lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas,” as one source put it.

Several of the sources, who spoke to +972 and Local Call on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Israeli army has files on the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza — including homes — which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. This number is calculated and known in advance to the army’s intelligence units, who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly how many civilians are certain to be killed."

This is what you're denying. This is what you're defending. Why won't you just be honest about it rather than pretending that actually there is no evidence that the IDF is anything other than the world's most moral army, or saying that anyone who calls a genocide a genocide is racist? Why do you need to hide behind that?

[Wiswylfen]

You forgot the part where the IDF are well aware of roughly how many people they (will) kill. It's not a secret, just something most people on this forum (not you of course!) would like to ignore because the collection of information on and deliberate targeting of civilian buildings to maximise suffering conflicts somewhat with the laughably pathetic attempts to pretend that the Israeli military is the most humane in history or whatever. Again, they would seem to align well enough to be used internally. A rather different situation, as I'm sure you'll recognise.

No, I've made it clear that either no deaths are justified or all deaths are justified; the idea that the response to an attack killing 1500 should be killing 1500 random individuals on the other side, rather than destroying their government no matter the cost, is bizarre and divorced from reality. That civilian buildings which are used for military purposes are targeted should go without saying (although you seem to think it should not go at all!); your later quoted article treats this as scandalous rather than obvious.

I did say “not you of course”—did you actually read my post? I only ask because of that and the fact that, er, it’s civilian buildings which are not used for military purposes that are being destroyed. Indeed, as you have read, along with those civilian buildings in which one Hamas member lives (though those are being attacked when the Hamas member in question is away despite the IDF having detailed information on who’s in the building at the time of the attack—could someone, not Vosem, explain that one to me?).

In any case I’m glad to see that you don’t dispute the factuality of the article. I’ll respond to your poorly-informed stuff on the Arab Legion which is at odds with your own source in the morning.