this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Hamas: Bad guys
Israeli government: Bad guys
Innocents on both sides are just caught in the middle of both Hamas and Israel committing to collective punishment which is a war crime.
I don't know what's so hard about admitting that both sides are indeed at fault here.
The thing is you also have to admit the power imbalance at play here.
Both sides suck, but one side has the power to stop making the situation worse and stop abusing millions as they colonise their land.
This can never end or start to heal until the fucked up treatment of Palestinians stops. All they are doing is breeding tomorrow’s fighters.
Oh, I don't disagree, but Hamas committing similar atrocities isn't helping. A war crime is a war crime is a war crime. Targeting innocent civilians is never justified, and that is something both sides continue to do: target innocent civilians. Both sides essentially are involved in collective punishment of each other. In other words, war crimes.
Both sides are guilty as hell of some really fucked up shit. Yes, Israel is the occupier, but it doesn't justify killing innocents. Period.
Just like killing innocents in Palestine makes more sympathizers for Hamas, killing innocents in Israel just makes more sympathizers for the Israeli right-wing like Netanyahu.
It's a two way street and while Palestine has been oppressed for 50-some-odd years now, it just doesn't justify killing people who had nothing to do with making those decisions.
I think an apt comparison is Russia and Ukraine right now. I fully support Ukraine in this war, and part of that is not just because they're the underdog who got unjustifiably invaded, but because they take care to avoid targetting innocent civilians. For example, when they strike Sevastopol, they strike military facilities, never residential areas. Whereas Russia intentionally terrorizes the Ukrainian people, kidnaps Ukrainian children, targets residential areas, and commits so frickin many war crimes.
If the attack by Hamas were against legitimate military targets, I don't think there would be many people out here questioning it. But they didn't. They are a fundamentalist religious group that wishes to commit genocide, and they intentionally targeted and mass-murdered civilians. Beyond that, by attacking a music festival, they targeted people who were statistically more likely to be sympathetic to their cause. Clearly their goal is not simply self defense, but genocide.
Also a good comparison is the PLO in West Bank, as they aren't Hamas and had no hand in this attack. In fact, they and Hamas hate each other. And as far as I'm aware, PLO just wants the two-state solution and haven't officially sanctioned terrorist attacks in ages. Unfortunately, Hamas has likely managed to discredit the PLO cause, despite them not having any guilt in this.
That's... complicated. There is a fund that the PA pays the PLO to administer called the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund. It pays out stipends to the family of Palestinians who have been killed, imprisoned, or hurt while attacking Israel. This has been a point of contention for a long time, but it's apparently very popular among Palestinians so politicians are loath to touch it.
how are they similar atrocities?
did hamas lock 2.5 million people in the worlds most dense open air prison?
did hamas systematically crushed their buildings and not let concrete inside?
did hamas shoot little kids just for throwing rocks?
did hamas systematically murdered press, medics on the field?
did hamas control israelis food intake?
did hamas very deliberately snipe the knees of people peacefully protesting?
did hamas cut electricity, water, food?
did hamas bombed places that palestinian prisoners stayed?
did hamas tell people to leave the city and bomb the only way out?
what did hamas do? the only thing left to do when you do all of those things to a people.
It's called collective punishment and there's a reason it's a warcrime. Being willing to punish any and every Israeli citizen for the crimes of some is just as bad and the exact same thing as what Israel is doing by cutting off power to everyone in Gaza.
Both sides are willing to punish everyone who they consider different than them. Both Hamas and the Israeli government operate on the idea that everyone needs to be punished for the crimes of the other side.
I don't know what's so hard to understand about both partaking in collective punishment. Israel has more power, money, and resources, absolutely. They've been horrendous to the people of Palestine, for over fifty years now.
That will never justify killing innocents, my dude.
An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
so tell me then, how would you behave if you were a palestinian? just accept death?
I would hope, if I was going to attack them, I would have the ability and willingness to attack military or political targets: in other words, the people who are actually most responsible for the current state of Israel and its willingness to continue occupying Palestine. Like the US, Israeli "democracy" isn't necessarily super representative of what the beliefs of a lot of the citizens of the country are. It goes without saying that Palestinians have a right to self-direction and the international community should be recognizing them as a nation, and they deserve all that without constant encroachments and stealing land and being kept in a ghetto.
However, choosing to attack civilians who may have actually been sympathetic to you is a path that actually undermines your ability to get more sympathizers. Just like Israel killing civilians in Palestine just makes more people support Hamas. It's a stupid, vicious cycle where attacking civilians on both sides just keeps getting both sides more entrenched in belief they're correct, because the other side attacks innocents. Each side conveniently ignoring all the innocents they've slaughtered.
Further, these are both driven by terrible ass Abrahamic religions that are both warring over the same Holy City. Like in the US, it's religion holding us back and making people wildly violent. Just look at the MAGAs, they're frothing at the mouth at wanting to kill people who don't believe like they do, even though they hardly even ascribe to any of the values of their own ostensible religion. They're both religions with a terrible fundamentalist streak (Islam and Judaism), and it is part of why both sides are so willing to commit atrocities: because they believe their God is behind them, and thus they have faith they are in the right.
Seriously, if they want me to take them seriously, they could pop Netanyahu and his fucking cronies, who have shown the Israeli government to be a corrupt sham much in the way Reagan, Bushes and Trump did for the US. Nah, they're too eager to go after innocents. Both sides are too eager to do that, and I'm not getting behind either ancient ass bullshit ass bigoted fucking religion.
Exactly. It's not a choice between "murder innocent civilians" and "do nothing"; it's a choice between "murder innocent civilians" and "target legitimate targets such as the military apparatus that actually murders Palestinians regularly or the right-wing political apparatus that pursues a policy of military hyper-aggressiom, apartheid, and settler colonialism".
If they chose to do the latter, I doubt nearly as many people would take issue with them, they'd receive vastly more sympathy, and they could finally end the systemic murder and oppression of Palestinians faster.
you would have the ability? how?
Look man, if your options are literally only "do nothing and accept your fate" or "kill a bunch of innocent people who never did anything to you and actually may have supported you" then maybe you should just give up and accept your fate, because we're literally seeing how many more innocents are dying because of this. They didn't put a dent in Israel's defenses. They gave Israel more excuses to the international community to murder even more innocents. Great plan, Hamas. I'm glad it worked out so swimmingly and actually changed things instead of just continuing the same bullshit cycle. /s
If you can point to me out how this is going to result in anything other than more death and destruction, feel free to clue me in. Because fuck nothing has changed. They didn't take out the people responsible. They didn't change the power balance, and now even more Palestinians are paying the price because Israel is a fucked up aggressor.
Acting like a bad plan that resulted in more innocents deaths is some great blow against the establishment is dumb as fuck.
Are you saying the only options are handing out collective punishment or accepting death?
First, that’s doubtable. But if so, I’d indeed accept death. I’m not killing innocents.
I’d rather die than become a living monster.
no im not saying that, youre saying that. you are equating what israel has done for 75 years to mere reaction to that. you may not believe that hamas is not killing civilians on purpose and i cannot change that, but that does not change reality.
we have seen just war crimes over war crimes from israel just for the past few days. this is on top of decades of apartheid.
i could accept death for myself, too. but not for my daughter.
I was equating killing innocents with killing innocents, nothing else.
You are justifying mass punishment with …something about your daughter, and with that exposing exactly the attitude that keeps the region in a never ending cycle of death.
"2. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle;" https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-184195/
war crimes:
these are the ones that were committed in just few days.
I understand. you list here injustice that when experienced are beyond words.
Now tell me: in what cases does is the punishment of innocents justified?
your assumption is wrong.
israel displaced millions of palestinians and replaced them with settlers. the blood is on israel government not hamas. they could easily not replace millions of people and we would not be here today.
Now you named one factor that explains this mess, and no objection here. But I’m still missing the answer how killing innocents can be justified.
It seems to me that you think that every person that lives in Israel is responsible for everything that the Israeli government did over the years.
How is that any different from this weeks retaliation that this Israel government hands out over the massacres of citizens by hamas from last weekend?
i have been saying the same thing from the beginning, but i think your perspective of the situation is holding you back from understanding what im saying.
you can put innocent people anywhere in the world and they dont stop being innocent. but that does not change the fact that they are in someone elses home illegally.
if they did not want to be in someone elses home then it is the fault of the government, if they did want to be in someome elses home then it is their fault.
Again, what’s the justification for killing innocents? Because they walk on land that another claims theirs? That sort of thinking always and everywhere only led to war and war crimes.
As for the Israelis, for those who live there, it’s their home, for many going back three generations. In many cases those ancestors took it it legally under ottoman law. I find that 24-undisputed-hour-rule questionable myself, but your story doesn’t hold up legally in many cases, nor historical. Everyone’s ancestors lived someplace. That doesn’t automatically make that place theirs.
Pointing to an old map and claiming the territory that another currently occupies never leads to peace.
ok then look at the demographic between 1917~1948, you will see how the land was not bought but stolen, not from the ottomans but the british.
when you illegally occupy a land long enough, it does not make the occupation go away. its still an occupied territory.
Oh really? Then we’d have war everywhere. There is no place on earth that was not at some point taken by force by this or that group of people.
Ok, so before 1918, the Ottomans had that piece of land for about 400 years. I guess that makes a turkish claim is older, and therefore stronger, by your logic, am I right?
Before that there was the Mamluks for 200 years, but that doesn’t seem an ethnicity that’s notable today, so let’s forget that.
Before that, the cruzaders had that land for 200 years, I suppose that means Europe also has an older claim.
Before that, Arabs for 400 years, so I see we’re back to their claim.
But hold on, before that, it was Roman territory for a whopping 700 years. That’s notable. Italia has a really good claim, I’d say.
But even before, there were the Jews there, and for close to a thousand years. So, following your logic the state Israel has all right to be there.
Before that there also lived people, of course, but it’s hard to pinpoint those to ethnicity. Egypt was there shortly. That’s an older claim even, but not very long.
Hmm. Are now all those people justified in killing innocents on some grounds that hasn’t been “theirs” for generations?
no, the ottomans were the occupiers, so thats just not my logic.
and the same goes for the rest.
this discussion turned into a loop, so i guess good day to you.
Ok, I guess then there is no logic to understand. I'll stop trying. Have a good day.
asymmetric warfare. i would figure it out. sorry about your palestinians but im different. /s
Yes both sides are targeting innocent civilians, and this is not cool.
But only one side is colonising a people’s land, imprisoning them in ghettos, and destroying their future.
Hence why criticism of Israel should always be greater
Hamas knows this. And they knew that Israel would respond with disproportionate force. They only care about destroying Israel and the Jews, per their charter, and they aren’t afraid to sacrifice as many Palestinian lives as it takes.
Maybe Russia got Iran to get Hamas to attack Israel knowing that Israel would go full scale, knowing that the USA is all in on Israeli support, thus reducing their aid to Ukraine?
Ok then let's send better weapons to Hamas. I am sure they will be happy to precise target and hit all military installations. It's kind of sad to see privileged people pointing out how someone else is supposed to fight the boot on their throat.
Yup. The meme and simple “everyone is bad” explanation doesn’t touch on the fact that this is an asymmetrical war.
But one side lives in suburbs and the other in an open-air prison, without medical supplies, under permanent drone surveillance, oh and every 5 years all the buildings get flattened.
Well that perspective disagrees with both flavors of propaganda. It's fucking true but nobody with a horse in the race will agree with you ever.
It definitely seems like a perspective that you have to be able to step back and be like "neither side is justified in their behavior" which is hard for people with a horse in the race to do.
It’s understandable too, how do you convince someone to stop fighting back so their enemy will stop punching them?
Like, remember when your parents told you that the best way to stop arguing with someone was to just stop arguing?
This is the same situation but instead of just arguing they’re literally committing war crimes and terrorist acts against each other.
Hard to say who started it in the moment when both are acting, and when everyone is acting in it frankly the who started it becomes irrelevant when there is only one good solution, for everyone to stop.
Heck, part of it is you have to convince people to stop treating others as a monolith. Even the language of "their enemy will stop punching them" implies the entire populace of Israel is one monolith united in oppressing the Palestinians and that the entire population of Palestine is one monolith united in actively fighting Israel.
People need to be able to take a step back and recognize that their enemies are not the common folk, the innocent civilians. Most people just want to live their lives. Only a small minority is ever actually actively engaged in the fighting, or the political decisions to continue fighting.
Israelis (at least those that support Netanyahu and the apartheid state) need to collectively realize that having an apartheid state is not "fighting back"; it's just punishing 99% innocents. Likewise, Hamas needs to realize that mass murdering civilians is not "fighting back"; it's just punishing 99% innocents. True fighting back requires actually finding the people responsible for harming you, not ascribing blame to rando civilians just because they happen to have been born on the same side of the border as your true enemies.
...and you're treated as culturally insensitive if you point out that it's partially motivated because of two bullshit ass religions, and the reason they won't stop is because they've each just got to prove their God has the bigger dick, even though they're technically the same God.
When two children are arguing an adult steps in and separates them each into their own timeout corner.
That's what needs to be done, but good fucking luck with that.
Hamas does not really have a propaganda machine. Israel does.
slight difference here, while Hama's goal is singular, to kill as many civilians as possible, israels goal is to abolish the hostile militia on it's border, the civilians killed are a casualty of war, and not the target, once said militia uses civilians as human shields and commits all of these atrocities, you just can't submit to their shields.....
Because they aren't.
Israel is genociding Palestinians, and Hamas is resisting them.
If innocents are caught in the crossfire of Hamas resisting, then Israel is to blame, not Hamas. Israel targets civilians, Hamas was targeting the military.
Yep, especially in that music festival, or a pizzeria in Jerusalem, or in Dolfinarium music party - much military targets. And Arab Israeli population went from 1.5M to 2M since 2006 - if that's a genocide, the Israelis are really bad at it...
You mean the dance rave held at the gates of a concentration camp and active war zone? The one with many Israeli soldiers positioned and decided to skirmish the Palestinian resistance, and put the ravers in crossfire?
That's because of their high birth rate. 45% of Palestinians are under the age of 15. The genocide numbers are very well documented, but I admire your bravery with genocide denial despite mountains of evidence.