Also, seems like a pretty crappy defence just on pragmatic grounds. “We keep oppressing them and denying them rights and sovereignty and encroaching on their territory, and they keep attacking us. Guess we need to oppress them harder.” Yeah, if the point of this apartheid-like system was actually to decrease hostility and attacks, it doesn’t seem to have a great track record.
So what about the OP? What is the best justification for the treatment of Palestinian civilians?
Well, I thought that I’ve been preaching that but, since there is confusion, I’ll state it more directly. The justification is that you do what you feel is necessary to root out and neutralize the enemy. If the “civilians” are harboring people who are attacking, destroying and killing, then the “civilians” will have to deal with the consequences.
Well, that certainly gets rid of all those pesky worries about not only apartheid but also potential war crimes and ethnic cleansing and genocide, doesn’t it?
Other people’s rights be damned: as long as we “feel” that oppression or even indiscriminate killing is “necessary”, then that justifies it, end of story.
No, I don’t consider that a good defense or justification of Israeli practices vis-a-vis the Palestinians. I agree, though, that nobody seems to have come up with any other defense or justification of them that’s any better.
ETA: One major issue with that justification is that it’s very much a two-way street. If, for example, Israeli settlers in Palestinian territories “attack, destroy and kill” Palestinian lives and property, and Israeli civil society and the military shield the settlers from penalties for their actions, then by your reasoning, that justifies Palestinian militants in inflicting violent “consequences” on Israeli “civilians” who are “harboring” the attackers.
That would appear to justify anything and everything, up to mass rape and murder, as long as they claim it’s necessary for security and to root out militants. Is that your position?
That is YOUR interpretation, so don’t assign it to me. In fact, words like “genocide” are being thrown around freely as accepted fact when, in actual fact, it’s not fact at all.
I did some research. There are between 50 and 100 separate Arab nation terrorist groups in the world. I did more research. There are 2 (yes, two) recognized Israeli terrorist groups in the world, Kahane Chai and Kach and the Jewish Defense League (JDL). Hmm … maybe we have the victims and monsters mixed up.
History shows us opression can neutralize security threats long-term. Think of the Black Hills (Mount Rushmore): the Lakota’s fighting capability is nonexistent, they are totally subordinated, the situation is stable, and the threat to U.S. citizens in sacred tribal lands is virtually nonexistent. Today, we look back and say at what cost. Is the security defense valid to the exclusion of all other considerations? are we acknowledging that it only provides security to one side? are there some measures which could increase security, but are nonetheless illegitimate? The Supreme Court held that the U.S. illegally took those lands and ordered money compensation, which the Lakota tribe famously refused to accept. But more importantly, to many people who actually supported it, at the time, the “costs” of genocide and forced displacement were actually “benefits” in service of primary objectives: the gold rush, manifest destiny, etc. So history shows that oppression can result in security, but I question whether it works as a freestanding defense or must always be secondary to something else, e.g. Zionism.
~Max
I think putting the word civilians in scare quotes pretty much tells us all we need to know.
Try doing some thinking? A little thinking surely makes it clear that the absolute numbers of organizations identified as “terrorist groups” associated with Arab nations (22 Arab League countries, total population about 450 million) and organizations identified as “terrorist groups” associated with Israel (1 country, total population about 10 million, not counting Palestinians without rights living under Israeli control) are not a meaningful proxy for the comparative “victimhood” or “monstrousness” of any of the parties involved.
Both numbers would be equally consistent with, say, a simple demographic rule of thumb estimating that you get about one terrorist group with every 5 million individuals in a population, irrespective of the victimhood or monstrousness of the population involved. Which makes any effort to infer relative morality levels from those numbers a pretty silly exercise.
And again, none of what you’re arguing is a coherent justification for a systemic policy of apartheid-style subjugation and denial of rights. It’s not humane, it’s not healthy, and it’s not helping.
I’m just trying to understand your position. Is it your position that, in the name of security, Israel is justified in allowing settlers to brutalize and steal from Palestinian civilians without repercussions?
Or do you believe that there are no Palestinian civilians - they are all, including women and children, enemy combatants?
Sure, systemic oppression (especially at the level of outright ethnic cleansing and genocide, as with Native American peoples) can ultimately eliminate a conflict. As for whether that qualifies as a valid justification of said oppression, though, I’ll quote the words of L. Frank Baum (later the author of The Wizard of Oz and sequels) following the Battle of Wounded Knee:
I guess the colonizers of Israel, starting with the Romans who renamed it Palestine and followed by the Arabs who took it from them (after some back and forth with Persia), fucked up by not wiping out the Jewish natives, because now their present is as full of trouble with Jews as their past was.
…I didn’t quote any “leftists.”
The International Court of Justice is NOT a “leftist” organisation.
They are the “judicial organ” of the United Nations.
Human Rights Watch is not a “leftist” organisation.
Amnesty International are not a “leftist” organisation.
B’Tselem are not a “leftist” organisation.
https://www.btselem.org/about_btselem
Unless you are arguing that the rule of law, human rights, liberty, equality, ending grave abuses, protecting civilians and refugees and children in need are all fundamentally “leftist” values and the centre and the right are opposed to that?
Do you support the rule of law? Human rights? Liberty and equality for all?
I certainly do. One would expect that we all should support these things. However, if only the “left” are allowed to oppose abuses happening in all corners of the globe, then I’ll own that, I suppose. I’m a leftist.
But I don’t think that’s how it works. These are universal values. And they should be shared no matter if you are from the “left”, the “centre” or the “right.”
It has everything to do with the OP. I’m saying that if a country is attacked a bunch of times year after year it’s inevitable that they will fight back and that civilians in the attacking country will get hurt. I’d go further that if it was any other country that was subjected to what Israel has been subjected to that the Palestinians would have experienced actual genocide years ago. Consistent with decisions by UN bodies, I don’t think Palestinians have been subjected to genocide so far, and that the reason they throw around such an accusation is because Hamas has an explicit policy of genocide, eg “From the river to the sea.” Hamas just doesn’t have the military power to back it up.
Look I understand that you want to discuss the issue on terrain favorable to you, but Palestinian intransigence, internal repression, and not coincidentally the weakness of their peace movement before October 2023 (I don’t expect anything now) have everything to do with Israel’s tough policies. That and their small geography, in terms of square kilometers.
I have no idea how to get the settlers to suck it up over the short or long run.
“Facts on the ground”. They preceded the creation of the Palestinian authority. They create a buffer between Israel and their right flank.
Yeah, the situation is bad. I’ll take the authors of the Advisory Opinion of the International Criminal Court at their word that the occupation and settlements are in violation of international law (by a vote of about 11-4). Other than jailing Nentanyahu, I don’t know what to do about it.
…what we actually think is that most of the world collectively agreed to a legal framework that includes things like the Geneva Convention and International Humanitarian Law.
And what we think is that these treaties and conventions and legal frameworks don’t just apply to the people “we don’t like.” But they should apply to everyone.
Hamas committed atrocities on October the 7th. Those responsible should be held to account.
And the IDF have committed atrocities both before and after October the 7th. They also should be held to account.
In the situation you describe, of “ran back to my country and hid my troops and munitions under a hospital”, that just wasn’t a thing that happened here.
There are only very limited circumstances where hospitals can become a legitimate target. And Israel never provided any evidence before attacking and/or forcibly evacuating hospitals in Gaza that any of these circumstances had been met, and the evidence they showed AFTER they had occupied the hospitals was laughable.
Isreal showed absolutely zero hesitation targeting hospitals. In fact, they deliberately targeted the healthcare system and brought it to its knees. The idea that knowing this, Hamas would still choose to make them “bases of operations” and hide there makes absolutely no sense at all.
The reality is that the IDF were the ones that turned hospitals into military outposts. The IDF forced everyone to evacuate the Turkish Friendship Hospital. Then they occupied it and turned it into a military base.
Then they destroyed it. We still don’t know why they destroyed it. “The IDF started a probe into the apparent demolition of the hospital without approval.” They don’t even know why they did it.
…so you understand why October 7th was inevitable then. And that the civilians in the attacking country got hurt.
What is happening in Gaza right now is an actual genocide.
And what about what the Palestinians have been subjected to? Does that not count?
This thread is about apartheid. Apartheid is bad, yes? Don’t you think after decades of apartheid, it’s inevitable that they will fight back and that civilians in the attacking country will get hurt?
“From the river to the sea” isn’t an explicitly genocidal statement. They are just words.
If they were explicitly genocidal, then it was genocidal when used in the election manifesto of the Likud party or when Netenagu said it a few years ago.
And it isn’t just Palestinians “throwing the word genocide” around.
It’s Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International. A broad consensus of genocide scholars, including some Israeli Holocaust scholars. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. Physicians for Human Rights Israel.
The leading agencies have all produced reports outlining exactly how Isreal’s conduct in Gaza meets the threshold of the genocide convention. South Africa has bought a case for genocide to the International Court of Justice. The International Court of Justice issued an interim ruling and ordered a set of provisional measures on Isreal in order to prevent genocide.
The reason why Palestinians are saying what they are is because Israel has been using food as a weapon. Because even months after the “ceasefire”, Palestinians in Gaza are still living in squalor, in filth, disease-ridden tent encampments. Gaza has the highest number of child amputees in the world. There are still bodies buried under the rubble. Thousands of innocent Palestinians are being held in Isreali torture camps.
The argument that this isn’t a genocide is typified by your comment here. In this case it appears to be “Hamas is also genocidal; therefore, Israel is not.” That isn’t a strong argument. Not when compared with multiple independent evidence-based reports and the strength of the case currently going through the ICJ.
I have suggested, again, that settler misbehaviour is tolerated as a policy to weaken the Palestinians:
If Israel wanted to actually enforce the law, protect civilians, or even make most illegal settlers move, the mechanisms are there to do it without too much trouble.
Is anyone defending the system as in asserting the status quo is somehow legal?
Having read some accounts by soldiers fighting in Gaza, occupying civilian buildings for use as military outposts (in the process destroying most everything in the building) and levelling everything outside the building to establish a perimeter, lines of sight, etc., was completely standard, routine, and unremarkable. If you asked GI Joe why they destroyed such-and-such a building, they probably would not even understand what you meant by that question.
The UN reviewed the evidence and decided that no genocide was occurring in Gaza. But that was before the ceasefire. The subsequent use of food as a weapon in Gaza makes me nervous about the possibility that Israel crossed the threshold. Then they loosened up the embargo a little. I haven’t followed it up in detail since.
“River to the sea”, is a clear statement of genocidal intent, which is why Hamas accused Israel of genocide before the ceasefire.
All that said, “Stop lobbing missiles at a country whose military is far more powerful than your militia,” doesn’t sound like a big ask.
Just pausing here to note the very characteristic “Schrodinger’s nation status” frequently assigned to Palestinians in this way for rhetorical purposes.
When it’s a question of Palestinians having a right to self-determination and to defend the homeland where they’ve been living for centuries against territorial encroachment, of course, we’re careful not to refer to Palestinians as constituting a “nation” or a “country”.
When it’s a question of trying to justify indiscriminate slaughter and destruction on the part of Israel in retaliation against attacks by people they’re keeping in permanent subjugation, on the other hand, then Palestinians temporarily get awarded the honorary “nation” or “country” title, as in “attacking country” or “enemy country”.
Yeah, if Palestinians do actually constitute a “country”, then how about Israel butts out of their country instead of constantly violating its borders and claiming the perpetual right to subject its citizens to an ongoing apartheid-like system of segregation and oppression?
In other words, “Just sit down and take the perpetual oppression and territorial encroachment, or you can expect to get oppressed harder.” Sure, I get how that is frequently in many respects a successful policy for the more powerful party in the conflict, but I still don’t see how it can be considered a justifiable one.
Is it equally genocidal when it’s used by Israelis to express their determination to control all the territory of Israel/Palestine, for example, in the 1977 Likud Party founding charter?
…bolding mine.
When you say “UN”, can you be a tad more specific?
From the section “Expressions of Genocidal Intent against the Palestinian People by Israeli State Officials and Others.”
There is a reason why there is an arrest warrant out for both Netanyahu and Gallant that states:
Allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/netanyahu
Note the dates. NOT after the ceasefire.
I mean, thats fairly obvious.
It’s four words. It isn’t explicitly a statement of genocidal intent. Not in the way “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” is. Can you not see the difference? You’ve just said “river to the sea” twice now. Did you intend to commit a genocide? No, you did not. Context is everything.
“Might is right” is never a strong moral argument.