Discussion thread for the Hamas Attacks Israel thread, October 2023

[puzzlegal]

And Israeli attacks, for instance, on hospitals have been disproportionate to the military risk those hospitals hold. Israel has the military power to have taken each hospital and held it, allowing it to continue legitimate operations, while sealing off any tunnels in concrete. Instead, they’ve leveled a lot of those buildings.

Israel’s attacks on civilians seeking food from “aid” organizations have been blatant enough that some soldiers have gone on the record saying they were wrong.

And Israel has killed an awfully large number of journalists.

Media freedom group says Israel killed highest number of journalists again...

In total, since the start of hostilities in Gaza in October 2023 with the Hamas-led slaughter in southern Israel, nearly 220 journalists have died, making Israel the biggest killer of journalists worldwide for three years running, according to RSF data.

There are other wars in progress. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has been systematically killing journalists.

And some of Israel’s claims about the dead journalists are ridiculous. “He was a combatant until 5 years ago when he was injured”. (A paraphrase that’s no doubt not exactly accurate.) Military veterans are not generally considered appropriate targets. Many of those journalists were well known to international journalists, and you know, they really were journalists.

Murdering the witnesses is, to me, a confession of wrongdoing.

I’m a Jew. I grew up sending pocket change to Israel to plant trees. I grew up fearfully rooting for Israel in several existential wars against its neighbors, wars started by the neighbors.

And i think that there’s a moral statute of limitation on “how land was acquired”, and people who grew up in a place have a right to be there. (No, i won’t be very sad if Russia gets to keep Crimea in a cease fire, either.) So i don’t think that issues around the creation of Israel mean that Israelis have no rights to that land.

But right now, it sure looks like Israel is committing wars crimes.

(The US, too. But that’s a topic for another thread. I’ll just say that i want us to stop doing that, too.)

[puzzlegal]

Moderating:

@Kimstu

Eradicationist rhetoric of this sort is just an artificial excuse to give Israel carte blanche for any and all war crimes it may commit, and disingenously assign all the blame for them to Palestinians.

This is MPSIMS. You are accusing another poster of being “disingenuous”. You can say that another poster is wrong, or even that they are repeating claims from a source that lies. But you cross a line when you suggest another poster is lying.

No warning, because it’s not 100% clear who you are accusing of originating the disingenuity. But please be more careful going forward.

[Thing.Fish]

@WalterBishop

These atrocities are part and parcel of warfare. Civilian deaths, war crimes, dead babies, they’re just what war - every war - looks like. Israel are certainly not special in that regard. By the standards to which some in this thread are holding Israel, the Allies in WWII were far worse. They killed far more civilians, including children and babies, they committed many more war crimes, their war crimes went largely unpunished. Yet we forgive ourselves and condemn Israel. Why?

War is hell. That’s why you shouldn’t start them. If you do start one, everything that follows is on you. We accept this when we’re talking about ourselves and our own actions. We should also accept it when considering Israel’s.

So you’re taking the Pete Hegseth line that there is no such thing as international law or war crimes? And your claim about the WW2 Allies is just bizarrely false. Certainly the Allies committed war crimes, primarily by launching air raids on civilian targets, but they certainly didn’t, as you claim, make a habit of going into German towns and just shooting everyone there, like the Zionists did in '47. The reason is that their war aims were to destroy the Nazi government, not to exterminate all ethnically German people or force them to flee to other parts of the world so that Germany could be settled by a new population.

[Thing.Fish]

@Babale

You talk to me about “global opinion”. How many lives did Global Opinion save on October 7th? How many hostages were released thanks to Global Opinion?

And yet you seem to be very concerned about global opinion, and appropriately so. If the US and EU adopted a firm policy of supporting a one-state solution, you’d be fucked. So maybe don’t do things that increase the chances of that happening?

[Thing.Fish]

@Babale

Very, very true. Antisemites have never been in short supply.

This is how Zionists avoid taking responsibility for their actions. All anti-Zionism is really motivated by anti-Semitism, and anti-Semitism is by definition irrational. Therefore, there is nothing Jews can do to reduce the amount of anti-Semitism in the world, so we might as well commit all the atrocities we want. Anyone who objects to bombing children’s hospitals would have objected to anything Israel does, because, by definition, only anti-Semites ever object to anything Israel does. Israel is always blameless.

[Thing.Fish]

@WalterBishop

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that the Allies deserve the kind of condemnation that Israel is currently getting. I’m just saying that we should judge Israel by the same standard to which we’ve historically always judged ourselves.

Historically, the standards America has judged itself by say that genocide and slavery are totally cool. I disagree that those standards don’t need to be updated.

[Babale]

@Thing.Fish

This is how Zionists avoid taking responsibility for their actions. All anti-Zionism is really motivated by anti-Semitism, and anti-Semitism is by definition irrational. Therefore, there is nothing Jews can do to reduce the amount of anti-Semitism in the world, so we might as well commit all the atrocities we want.

Naaah, I wouldn’t say that.

In the same sense that the BLM movement enflamed some anti-black racists, I’m sure there’s plenty of anti-semites enflamed by Zionism and the existence of a Jewish state. And maybe we could in some abstract sense reduce the total amount of anti-semitism if we accepted our role as dhimmi subhuman untermensch. I just don’t think that’s worth it.

@Thing.Fish

Anyone who objects to bombing children’s hospitals would have objected to anything Israel does, because, by definition, only anti-Semites ever object to anything Israel does. Israel is always blameless.

Erm, no, not quite. If you object to a hospital being bombed, or to any other action of Israel, that’s a valid stance to take. But then you wouldn’t describe yourself as anti-Zionist. Unless someone is particularly ignorant, they call themelves an anti-Zionist because they oppose the existence of a Jewish state as a concept, not because they disagree with this or that action taken by Israel.

[Kimstu]

@puzzlegal

This is MPSIMS. You are accusing another poster of being “disingenuous”. You can say that another poster is wrong, or even that they are repeating claims from a source that lies. But you cross a line when you suggest another poster is lying.

No warning, because it’s not 100% clear who you are accusing of originating the disingenuity. But please be more careful going forward.

Fair point, thank you, and apologies to @WalterBishop if it seemed that my condemnation of such rhetoric implied an accusation of dishonesty directed at him personally, which was not my intent.

[DrDeth]

@WalterBishop

We went in with our AKs and killed everyone on the block. Repeatedly. And yet we’re totally cool with it. We’re proud of it, in fact. The generation that did it is the ‘Greatest Generation’.

AKs??? The AK 47 came out in- 1947. Americans and British soldiers tried not to shoot civilians. Of course there were the mass bombings.

@puzzlegal

And Israel has killed an awfully large number of journalists.

Some seem to be linked closely to terrorists, but there are claims most are-

Study Says up to 60% of Gaza War Journalists Killed Were Affiliated With...

Of course it comes from a biased source, but nearly all news from there is biased.

Take it as you will.

[WalterBishop]

@Kimstu

Fair point, thank you, and apologies to @WalterBishop if it seemed that my condemnation of such rhetoric implied an accusation of dishonesty directed at him personally, which was not my intent.

No apology necessary, and I took what you said in the spirit with which you intended it, so no harm no foul

It’s late here so I’ll try and respond to yours and others’ posts tomorrow.

[iiandyiiii]

There’s a great interview here with a Jewish-Australian writer about the recent shooting and how feelings about it among Australian Jews relate to Israel and Gaza:

https://archive.ph/tXXOq

[Babale]

What would be an example of how Zionism has been weaponized?
Most people know that most Jews in Australia are Zionist, and that springs from the Holocaust-survivor background. A lot of the discourse, certainly on the left and social media, has been to attack the legitimacy of Zionism as a nationalist movement and to question it and to call Zionism a colonial settler movement, and Israel a colonial settler state, and therefore question its legitimacy and right to exist. And so because Israel is a Jewish homeland, and that’s how it’s seen by the vast majority of Jews in Australia, this has become a fault line where criticism of Israel then bleeds into attacks on the identity and feelings of the Jews who live here. This has been further exacerbated by Zionism becoming a code word. So the word “Zio” has been used and spread by people who want to vilify Zionists. And when it’s said like that, this is not legitimate political discourse, but vilification and demonization of anybody who’s a Zionist. It’s become very heated and very ugly.

I know you feel criticisms of Zionism can be acceptable, but you feel that here, in many cases, it is being done with malicious intent?
Yes. The questioning of Israel’s legitimacy as a state that should exist as it does has become a widespread subject, not in respectable media, but on social media and in blogging and in the online world, which of course affects a lot of people.
And do you think this has more to do with the way these criticisms of Zionism are lodged than the criticism itself?
That context is important. And the way that the word has then become just sort of a grenade. And I guess also the fact that the questioning of Israel’s right to exist has not been raised in the context of other states that have been accused of transgressions.

And so your feeling is that because it’s raised so much about Israel, that that’s a sign of the intent of the people raising it?
Yes.

Agree fully with all this.

[iiandyiiii]

I don’t think I have any problem with what the guy said in the interview - he allowed for criticism both of Israeli policies and the concept of Zionism in general. I’d just add that atrocities and genocide are emergencies and immediate concerns, and with such immediate, urgent human rights concerns, it’s more important in the moment to focus on those human rights, and while concerns about unfair attacks and antisemitism are often legitimate they are less immediately urgent than ongoing atrocities such as purposeful starvation and genocide.

Adding to the above - this is one of the ways in which the atrocious behavior of the Israeli government and IDF continue to increase the danger faced by Jews around the world. More atrocities means more criticism and therefore more complications in separating good criticism from antisemitic nonsense, and more confusion from those not paying extra close attention.

[MrDibble]

@Babale

call Zionism a colonial settler movement, and Israel a colonial settler state,

Just my regular reminder that that’s also what the founders of Zionism called it:
Jabotinsky: “Zionism is a colonization adventure” and “Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population”
Herzl: “[Zionism] is something colonial”

Denying that Zionism has always been a colonial effort isn’t just counterfactual, it’s ahistorical.

Does that mean current Israel doesn’t have a right to exist? Naah, any more than say the USA or Australia don’t have the right to exist.

Does that mean it (or the others) necessarily have to exist in their current forms? No, that’s not a given either.

[Babale]

@iiandyiiii

Adding to the above - this is one of the ways in which the atrocious behavior of the Israeli government and IDF continue to increase the danger faced by Jews around the world.

The terrorist in this case already had ties to ISIS in 2019. But somehow this is all because of Israel defending itself against Hamas.

[iiandyiiii]

That’s not what I said. I’m not saying this particular incident, or any particular antisemitic incident, can be blamed on the IDF. I’m saying that IDF atrocities add to the very complicated mix of anger at Israel and the IDF and antisemitism in general. It’s hard for smart people to separate out every single antisemitic statement from good criticism in big events like protests, or in online discussions, and the Israeli government and IDF are making it even harder.

[MrDibble]

The atrocious behaviour of Israel and the IDF didn’t start with Oct 7. Hell, it started before there was an IDF proper…by the people who went on to found the IDF, and run Israel itself.

[FinsToTheLeft]

@MrDibble

The atrocious behaviour of Israel and the IDF didn’t start with Oct 7.

Do you feel that others in the area have acted in a blameless manner over history?

[MrDibble]

Nope. And…?

[iiandyiiii]

You forgot to list every bad thing any other group has ever done in the region (and maybe elsewhere too)!