I suppose if I equate “retributive genocide” and “just consequences” then I can see where you’re coming from. The US made similar statements as they poured white phosphorus on Afghani children after 9/11 and I thought it was a thin argument then. I don’t find it much more convincing now.
Overall I try not to lie, but given how different our experiences seem to be I’m not sure if there’s much I can say on the internet to convince you of that. Have a good one!
Will you state that Hamas should give up as a means of ending the conflict?
To test your moral and semantic consistency.
Your "retributive genocide" label doesn't hold if the conflict ends as soon as Hamas is eleminated, which it would. And which they can effect in this instant by giving up.
Not that people are obligated to or widely accepting of the morally and logically inconsistent labels of Hamas supporters. Hamas who began this conflict with a massive war crime.
Your straw man attempt is unskilled and indicative of your weak position.
You lie a lot. To yourself and to your readers. I never said "just consequences". You won't launder Hamas propaganda through this conversation. Every innocent death is an injustice on the head of Hamas and its supporters: many being Palestinian. Hamas can give up in this hour. Or better yet they can invent a time machine, return to October 6th, and cancel their plan for the massive war crime that started this.
The penalty for which, and which would save the most Palestinian lives, is Hamas giving up in the nearest possible moment.
They could have given up immediately in order to save the most possible Palestinian lives. Or moved out from behind their human shields, immediately. They didn't. Every moment that they do not is for the continuity of their war at the calculated expense of Palestinian civilian lives.
Let's see a single pro Palestine protest whose primary message is toward that single most effective goal.
inbfre your not so covert Hamas support and October 7th justifications.
Sure happy to: Oct 7 was a crime and the perpetrators should face justice. Hamas should immediately disarm and leave civilian areas. I don't like reactionary Islamism, I don't believe violent terror creates political progress. Fighting this war is not productive and is harming civilians. Again: you're welcome to impute whatever motives on me or others that you want, but that doesn't make them correct.
With all that said, I will also say: the presence of Hamas members in civilian areas does not give the Israeli military legal right to kill civilians. What is being done to (and has been done to for decades) the citizens of the West Bank and Gaza by the state of Israel is a crime and its perpetrators should face justice. West Bank settlers need to leave immediately and return the stolen property to its owners. The open air prison that is the West Bank should close and the rights of its occupants should be restored. War crimes don't fix war crimes.
The most direct way to stop the mass death of Palestinian civilians is for the people killing them to stop doing that. The idea that the only response to the violence of one political faction (Hamas) is greater amounts of retributive violence until conditions are met is just the “take hostages” paradigm at another scale. The fact that any attempt to move beyond that paradigm gets labeled as like “pro terrorist propaganda” is the same stupid nonsense that embroiled the US in a costly and atrocious war for 2 decades.
// The idea that the only response to the violence of one political faction (Hamas) is greater amounts of retributive violence
This seems to be the crucial flaw in your analysis - I don't see a cycle of "retributive" violence. Israel asserts the goal is to "solve this threat" not "kill as many as possible." If they could remove the threat w/o affecting civilians, they would do that. This is a qualitatively different than the Hamas strategy of intentionally targeting kindergartners as happened in Oct 7.
From where I'm sitting the historical contours are somewhat different. I understand what is asserted by Israel, but I think an examination of their historical treatment of Palestinians makes it pretty clear that they're interested in basically removing them from the area at any cost. In my own opinion, this history makes their claims about not wanting to harm civilians not very credible. I've drawn a lot of parallels with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and I think that this is another place where history is repeating itself. The US claimed over and over again that it was fighting "justly" and would not be committing violence if it wasn't the cleanest way to resolve the threat, but retrospective analysis shows that this isn't really what was happening on the ground.
>I don't believe violent terror creates political progress.
That's an understatement, especially for the situation under discussion. October 7th has forever destroyed any chance at diplomatic progress on the Palestinian cause. There will be zero political currency to make it happen.
One of the more curious phenomenons of this period is to watch Palestinians and their supporters speak of the future as if October 7th didn't happen.
And that there is some chance of diplomacy toward Palestinian statehood or an improvement in their condition going forward. There won't be, at least given their radicalized state that seems to be the status quo for the forseeable future. Life is going to be a misery for Palestinians, at least for generations more to come.
That isn't an emotional comment. It's an objective one that has the best interest of innocent Palestinians at heart, in terms of suggesting that they move away from radicalization and toward relocating to a region where they can actually have a quality of life.
Those whose rhetoric serves to keep Palestinians radicalized, such as yourself, in-part will be responsible for their continued abject misery. Situations permanently change and this is one of them.
>the presence of Hamas members in civilian areas does not give the Israeli military legal right to kill civilians.
You're confused as to how war works, absent proof of large scale targeting of only civilians.
Hamas just engaged in unspeakable evil to the end of beginning a real War. This isn't a joke. And it has chosen to hide in a dense urban area of one of its cities. Which is another act of unspeakable evil. Civilians should move South.
But no Army, especially one objectively guilty of an operation that was intended to be a massive and the most brutal of war crime, has ever been able to start a war and then hide among its civilians toward preventing its eradication. By claiming that the collateral damage incurred by going after them is a war crime. Leaving Hamas to commit future atrocities on target populations.
Yours are the ethics of the utilization of Human Shields toward engaging in War and War Crimes.
Luckily, the wider West has the baseline level of moral clarity enough to see through these "thin" arguments. If Hamas thought it was going to commit 10/7 and then use its civilians as legal shields, then it is finding out that it is mistaken. And it is further criminal for the attempt.
But it can end the War now by giving up now.
>retributive violence
An obvious falsehood given the already repeated constraints. See my prior posts.
> until conditions are met is just taking the “take hostages” paradigm to another scale.
Your logic car was teetering on its wheels and now has flipped into doing a double barrel roll down the highway.
This is a terrible attempt at inverting what is actually happening. Additionally, it mocks the vicitims of Hamas terror.
Hamas can free the Israeli hostages. Hamas can free Gaza immediately by removing itself from it, after starting a war.
The only stupidity here is how fiercely you are defending the continued actions, and their results, of the most potent terrorist threat in decades. On a public message board.
I don't want a single further civilian Palestinian to so much as get a scratch. They should all immeidately move South for the duration of this conflict, and work toward shaking off their Hamas rulers.
> Those whose rhetoric serves to keep Palestinians radicalized, such as yourself, in-part will be responsible for their continued abject misery.
What a fucked up thing to say. As if rhetoric from some far-away Westerners is what keeps these people radicalized and miserable.
You can eliminate Hamas down to the last man, but if conditions in Gaza don't change, you'll just get Hamas 2.0. And Hamas 3.0 after you eliminate those. I'm stating the obvious, but it's not possible to deradicalize a group of people by bombing them and depopulating their largest city.
> Yours are the ethics of the utilization of Human Shields toward engaging in War and War Crimes.
And yours are the ethics of shooting the hostage to kill the hostage taker. Which certainly has precedent in warfare, and may be necessary to ensure national security depending on who you ask — but let's not mince words here. You don't get to wash the blood from your hands by pointing to the hidden terrorists behind the corpses of bombed-out families. (Even if you're legally allowed to label it "collateral damage.")
