The USA and Israel

[phyllo]

If Americans committed atrocities, then Canadians are allowed to commit atrocities in return?

How many Americans are Canadians allowed to kill in retaliation or revenge?

No limits?

I don't speak for everyone else, but "revenge" is certainly an unacceptable reason for combat to me. Neutralising active threats, however, is an acceptable reason.

It's very disconcerting that there seem to be some powerful voices inside Israel that seem to be arguing for revenge, and not just ensuring safety.

I posted the number of Israelis and Palestinians killed since 2000 and 2008. There is some threat to Israelis but it's not extreme. The threat to Palestinians is much greater.

This :
viewtopic.php?p=683307#p683307

[Flannel Jesus]

But there are no limits to denialism, I realize.

I think this is an interesting example of how important the "who should I trust?" side of epistemology is. Alexis has made a choice. I'm not sure what rational means one has available to convince him he made the wrong one.

I don't agree with his choice, but at the same time I'm not in a position to comfortably say he's definitely wrong. I think he's probably wrong. I wouldn't be great at demonstrating why.

Ok. But you could make plain what you believe I am wrong about.

And what is the choice you believe I have made?

I believe you're wrong to reject the reported atrocious committed by Hamas. The choice you've made is in the sources of information you choose to trust and those you choose not to.

[Immanuel Can]

If, for example, the Americans rose up and kidnapped, raped and slaughtered the Canadians, all the while recording their own crimes, the world would see the thing clearly. And if the Canadians fought back to make the Americans stop, the world would understand completely...and maybe even hope that the Americans would take a well-deserved beating to keep them in line and make them think twice about killing the Mexicans. Substitute any other ethnicities in, and the same would apply.

If Americans committed atrocities, then Canadians are allowed to commit atrocities in return?

How many Americans are Canadians allowed to kill in retaliation or revenge?

I wouldn't say so. But many, many people would. You can see that graphically in the permissive attitude the public took to the sacking, looting and burning that went on so freely and with so much approval after the G. Floyd fiasco.

That's human nature. It's mighty ugly...not just the protesters, I mean, but the degree to which people approved of and condoned that revenge. Human beings have a keen sense of entitlement to 'justice' as they perceive it, by which they often mean no more than revenge, but very little conscience about hold-backs on that.

But Israel's not attempting revenge, obviously. What they're trying to do is eliminate Hamas, who are sworn to kill all Jews if they stop. When Hamas stops, the war will instantly be over. If Israel stops, Israel will shortly be over.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Hamas is, somehow, doing a remarkably good job at propaganda. I wonder how they managed that. Imagine having the ability to go to a village, rape and murder and burn alive, and then have people around the world saying you didn't do that...

It's surreal, and that seems to be the reality.

I believe you're wrong to reject the reported atrocious committed by Hamas. The choice you've made is in the sources of information you choose to trust and those you choose not to.

I think I have a very clear idea of exactly what they did. They organized a military operation with extremely limited means and carried it out perfectly. The cost to them was very high. Only a few that participated returned. Whether you agree with their motives or objective you might agree that it involved a real sacrifice.

They definitely killed people, and families. I have seen video evidence of that. I also was made aware of recorded calls where a Hamas fighter called his parents to share the good news that he had killed "10 Israelis".

They may have been civilian and they may have been soldiers. It would not matter a great deal: all Israelis, except religious, serve in the military. Hamas believes, and they have very good reason to believe, they are fighting an *occupation*. I also believe I see this clearly. Israel occupied Palestine. It occupies the West Bank for example and is, slowly and surely, taking possession of it. My sympathies go with the dispossessed. I have almost zero sympathy for the settlers in the occupied West Bank hilltops. Those settlements never should have been allowed to happen. But Israel plays a rough and a calculated game.

Where I disagree is in some of the details. The burned vehicles of escaping party-goers: this is evidence of Israeli rockets fired from Apache helicopters. I have listened to (American) military personnel who (should) know about these things. The evidence points to rockets. Israel has a policy to fire on kidnappers and attackers when these are in process even if their own civilians are involved. This is known and documented. The reports I have read indicate that this is how Israel responded to the Hamas attack which caught them totally by surprise.

The burned homes are said to have been evidence of rocket fire. Is it possible that some homes were set on fire by Hamas fighters? Certainly. But the massive destruction in the photos was from Apache rockets. Again: according to military analysts.

Did rapes occur? It seems possible to me. But unlikely. Such things do happen in war though.

The 40 murdered babies; babies put in ovens; babies cut out of women's wombs: these things have been exposed as wartime propaganda. It is powerful propaganda though. It provides a vehicle for people's rage to be expressed.

They definitely kidnaped hundreds. I have no reason to doubt that.

The question is really -- I mean the question that I think you should ask -- is to what degree do I *support* their operation at a moral level. Isn't that the question you are most concerned about?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I don't speak for everyone else, but "revenge" is certainly an unacceptable reason for combat to me. Neutralizing active threats, however, is an acceptable reason.

If you do not understand what Jews and Israelis believe they are fighting -- and here I do refer to mythical enemies like Haman and Amalek -- then you cannot understand irrational retributive acts. I also do not think that you grasp the deeply cynical nature of Israeli motivation against its enemies. I mean at a psychological level.

For this reason I suggest understanding the innards of Judaic belief. And that is why I submitted those recent videos. They are extremely informative on those points.

Revenge -- God's revenge! -- pervades the Biblical accounts.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

If you cannot understand post-WW2 Jewish rage and the motivation of retribution, then you do not understand Jewish psychology at all.

[Alexis Jacobi]

But Israel's not attempting revenge, obviously. What they're trying to do is eliminate Hamas, who are sworn to kill all Jews if they stop. When Hamas stops, the war will instantly be over. If Israel stops, Israel will shortly be over.

That you really and honestly believe this amazes me.

I reflect back to you "But there are no limits to denialism, I realize".

What you are saying is actually: If Palestinians give up their will to resist there would have been no conflict. If they were to have surrendered their land without resistance there'd have been no conflict.

The Israelis, when they established their state, began the conflict. It began through the act and what followed.

"But there are no limits to denialism, I realize", so the choice not to see the conflict realistically, and to understand human reactions, is typical.

I personally choose other options. Because I am interested overall in understanding.

[Immanuel Can]

What you are saying is actually: If Palestinians give up their will to resist there would have been no conflict. If they were to have surrendered their land without resistance there'd have been no conflict.

Well, here's the Jewish explanation of that:

After 2000 years of longing, the result of the Holocaust – a Nazi movement which sought to ethnically cleanse the world of Jews by systematically exterminating us – was that the international community granted us a sliver of that ancestral homeland. It was to be shared, partitioned into a Jewish state & an Arab state. The Arabs rejected the partition & attacked the Jews when they declared the state of Israel in 1948. The Jews won. Arabs who remained in Israel became citizens with full rights & freedoms. 20% of Israel’s population today is Arab. They fight in the army, they are doctors, lawyers, members of Parliament & supreme court judges. There is no apartheid. Israel’s Jewish population consists of Jews from Arab lands, whose parents or grandparents were kicked out when the state of Israel was formed, & of descendants of refugees from Eastern Europe, Holocaust survivors who had no homes to return to. Some are more recent refugees from Europe, Russia, & the Americas who either returned to Israel for religious reasons or because the Jew-hatred in their communities grew too excessive & they decided to emigrate, to head for the one place in the world Jews can go if their neighbours or governments turn against them.

The West Bank & Gaza strip – along with refugee camps that still exist in Lebanon, Syria, & Jordan -- were the places that the Arab nations who attacked Israel at its founding told the Arabs living in Palestine (later to be known as Palestinians) to flee. It was supposed to be temporary, because the plan was to “push the Jews into the sea.” When the plan didn’t work out, all of these states refused to absorb the Palestinians. They wanted to keep them in camps because they still planned to annihilate Israel & the Jews that lived there & then the Palestinians could return. The West Bank was in Jordan & Gaza was in Egypt until 1967, when the Arab states tried again to push the Jews into the sea. Their failure this time ended with Israel capturing these territories. When Israel tried to exchange land for peace & give Gaza back to Egypt, Egypt didn’t want it. And so the territories remained in Israel. In 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza & left it to govern itself. Most of the West Bank is also self-governing, but not all because of the high number of suicide bombers & other threats to Israel’s existence fomenting there, so Israel hasn’t been able to fully remove itself. The current awful Israeli government has allowed religious fanatics, “settlers,” to build settlements there, which makes everything worse. And you see what I did there? I criticized Israel’s government. I can do that, & still support the existence of a Jewish state in our ancestral homeland. When you say “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” this is a call to ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland, from the only state in the entire Middle East that would look remotely familiar to you in terms of basic rights & freedoms & a democratic system if you were to visit the region. When Hamas supporters – like those who led you all in a rally on my home campus today – talk about Jews as “occupiers,” they don’t mean Gaza. They mean the whole state of Israel. They want Jews eradicated from the entire land.


Where is that incorrect?

[accelafine]

It's a war of words.
Plenty to go round. Select the delusion you want. But it does not change the fact that when an occuplying force has bulldozers as part of its arsenal the aim is genocide.

fake news.jpg

What the fuck is wrong with you? You believe every bit of bullshit that comes from Hamas,

This is not from Hamas but from Israel.
Wake the fuck up bitch

Sure it is. It looks so 'official'. Are you imod of amod? Pretty fucking cocksure aren't ya? How embarrassing to give in to a smidgen of power so easily.

[accelafine]

Typical of the hypocrisy of so-called self-proclaimed 'Marxists'. Pretend to care so much about Gazans, yet couldn't give a rat's arse that the leaders of Hamas are billionaires-- billions that were stolen from the people of Gaza. Leaders who look down their noses at the place to the extent that they won't even live there.

Yes, you're right. It is utterly impossible to loathe Hamas' leaders and tactics and be sympathetic to the children and other Palestinians getting killed. And one cannot possibly be critical of the Israeli government/military actions and not be antisemitic. If you are critical of something Israel is doing you think it was a good thing that Hamas, for example, killed the young party goers and raped and killed women. It is a logical necessity. It's as true as 2+2=, well, whatever that equals, it's as true as that.

Finally Philosophy Now has accelafine who understands that everything is utterly binary. It's all simple. Every conflict is simple. One side good, should not be criticized for anything. One side bad, no sympathy for anyone on that side for any reason.

Anyone breaking this hard and fast, impervious to logical criticism, philosophical rule is a woke Nazi communist anti-semitic, transperson with blue hair.

So simple. No need to think, finally. Just join in and hurl bile. Why, a simpleton could manage to understand this and spread it.

A blessing upon us.

I go with the side that has facts, logic and reason on it's side. One side does, the other doesn't. Seems pretty 'binary' to me.

[phyllo]

But Israel's not attempting revenge, obviously. What they're trying to do is eliminate Hamas, who are sworn to kill all Jews if they stop. When Hamas stops, the war will instantly be over. If Israel stops, Israel will shortly be over.

That you really and honestly believe this amazes me.

I reflect back to you "But there are no limits to denialism, I realize".

What you are saying is actually: If Palestinians give up their will to resist there would have been no conflict. If they were to have surrendered their land without resistance there'd have been no conflict.

The Israelis, when they established their state, began the conflict. It began through the act and what followed.

"But there are no limits to denialism, I realize", so the choice not to see the conflict realistically, and to understand human reactions, is typical.

I personally choose other options. Because I am interested overall in understanding.

Eliminate Hamas? Are not most of the casualties civilians?

A 2 to 1 ratio according to this report:

Around two civilians have been killed for every dead Hamas fighter in the Gaza Strip, senior Israeli military officials admitted Monday, and said the army was deploying high-tech mapping software to try to reduce non-combatant deaths.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says Israel's military campaign, in the wake of Hamas attacks on October 7, has killed around 15,900 people so far, most of them women and children.

Asked about media reports that 5,000 Hamas fighters had been killed, one of the senior officials told reporters at a briefing: "The numbers are more or less right.

"I'm not saying it's not bad that we have a ratio of two to one," one of the officials said, adding that the use of human shields was part of Hamas's "core strategy".

"Hopefully it (the ratio) will be much lower" in the coming phase of the war, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

https://www.barrons.com/news/israeli-mi ... a-39521f57

[accelafine]

If Americans committed atrocities, then Canadians are allowed to commit atrocities in return?

How many Americans are Canadians allowed to kill in retaliation or revenge?

No limits?

I don't speak for everyone else, but "revenge" is certainly an unacceptable reason for combat to me. Neutralising active threats, however, is an acceptable reason.

It's very disconcerting that there seem to be some powerful voices inside Israel that seem to be arguing for revenge, and not just ensuring safety.

So they should have just sat on their hands and waited for Hamas to 'kindly' return the hostages? You do realise that Gaza attacked Israel, not the other way around? Any dead Gazans have been killed at the hands of Hamas. There's no point in even arguing this. People who hate Jews aren't going to change in the face of facts and reasoned argument. That's what they have conspiracy sites for. It's never-ending.

[Flannel Jesus]

If Americans committed atrocities, then Canadians are allowed to commit atrocities in return?

How many Americans are Canadians allowed to kill in retaliation or revenge?

No limits?

I don't speak for everyone else, but "revenge" is certainly an unacceptable reason for combat to me. Neutralising active threats, however, is an acceptable reason.

It's very disconcerting that there seem to be some powerful voices inside Israel that seem to be arguing for revenge, and not just ensuring safety.

So they should have just sat on their hands and waited for Hamas to 'kindly' return the hostages? You do realise that Gaza attacked Israel, not the other way around? Any dead Gazans have been killed at the hands of Hamas. There's no point in even arguing this. People who hate Jews aren't going to change in the face of facts and reasoned argument. That's what they have conspiracy sites for. It's never-ending.

You did not correctly read what I wrote

[accelafine]

What part of 'Hamas filmed what it did' does the Jew-haters on here not understand?

[Sculptor]

What part of 'Hamas filmed what it did' does the Jew-haters on here not understand?

Just keep preserving those vegetarians in your soul

[Flannel Jesus]

What part of 'Hamas filmed what it did' does the Jew-haters on here not understand?

If that's meant to be a reply to me, it's not relevant to any of the words I wrote.