Thank you for this.
Humanity simply isn’t learning from its mistakes, it seems, then!
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Serious The Politics Thread
- Thread starter Oglemi
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Thank you for this.
Humanity simply isn’t learning from its mistakes, it seems, then!
See, if Hamas had only attacked Israeli military targets on October 7th, or if the vast majority of people who they killed had been Israeli soldiers, then I think I would agree with you guys. However, the fact that Hamas massacred hundreds of civilians, took hundreds of ordinary citizens hostage, and (allegedly) sexually assaulted dozens of women really does not bode well for what they would get up to if their organisation was better resourced.
I understand that. However, to the best of my knowledge, the "right to resistance" does not allow for an oppressed group to commit war crimes such as targeting civilians and taking people hostage. I don't believe that Hamas would unjustified in attacking the Israeli military, or even members of the wider Israeli government. However, attacking ordinary Israeli citizens is absolutely not justified in any way.
I stand by my original statement that both Hamas and the Israeli government are terrorist organisations and are both fundamentally in the wrong, even if the atrocities committed by the Israeli government have been more numerous and on a greater scale than those committed by Hamas.
Isn't it weird how any time Palestinians fight back the media is bombarded with unverifiable or debunked reports of rape and beheaded babies by Palestinians when the zionists are actually verifiably doing these things in significant numbers and actively defend it as morally righteous? Nobody who supports Palestinians thinks rape is good, though I'm sure people will google till they find one weirdo they can quote and assign to the entire Palestinian cause, but that doesn't make it true. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
This is not whataboutism - the accusations are confessions of what the zionists are actually doing. Civilians should not be raped (nor anyone else), any Hamas member raping civilians did something awful, but the scope of it is absurdly exaggerated by the media to push their narrative, and the zionist rapists are entirely ignored. I do not agree with assigning it to the entire organization when there is demonstrable proof, time and again, that Hamas members have treated captives with dignity, and I do not think "took hundreds of ordinary citizens hostage" is a negative either - when thousands of Palestinians are detained in zionist rape/torture camps, yes, you absolutely take hostages to exchange and free your people from the camps. Hamas was very clearly and obviously aiming for miliary targets because any captured soldier can be traded for a lot more Palestinian hostages.
As for massacring hundreds of civilians, just search "Hannibal Directive" in this thread for plenty of evidence that a huge portion of the massacre was, again, done by the zionists on their own people. I am not saying Hamas did not kill any civilians, but I'm not going to condemn the fact that, in what became a huge battle, there were civilian casualties. We know for a fact one side aims for civilians with glee, regardless of the side they're on, and it's not Hamas. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
The right of resistance doesn't exist if you are going to condemn those resisting for every single civilian death that happens, including ones caused by the zionists, and for taking hostages to exhange to free their own people. Do you expect people using makeshift rockets pressed into a small concentration camp of land to be absolutely perfect in their resistance? You're attacking victims for not being perfect victims, and it's gross.
What is the point of your entire post except to wash your hands of this, content in your moral superiority, and ignore the ongoing genocide? I genuinely can't find any reason to make a post like yours other than to justify averting your gaze because "everyone involved is bad" and letting the zionists finish the genocide, maybe occasionally tut-tutting about how they kill too many civilians.
If it was your family being genocided, what line would be too far to cross?
This is a pretty good post overall, but I have some issues with it, the main one being a misunderstanding of peoples intent. When people say that Hamas has done bad stuff, they aren't trying to say that Israel is the good guy here. They are trying to combat perceived misinformation. Just because they are critical of Hamas doesn't mean they don't recognize that Israel is objectively far far worse. You all can argue over the credibility of reports of Hamas cruelty, or what tactics they are justified in using, but the thing that every single person posting in this thread can agree on is that Israel is the villain in this scenario.
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Honest question:
What would attacking Israeli military and soldiers do? What would that do to advance the cause of Palestinian liberation? Can Hamas do any type of lasting military damage to the Israeli defense that would help end Gazan occupation?
Compare that to the potential or hypothetical value of taking civilian hostages.
Which of the above two tactics— attacking the IDF in direct warfare vs taking Civilian Hostages— is more likely to lead to talks/developments that could lead to Palestinian liberation?
So you assume anyone who is a member of Hamas, not under brutal occupation would act in the same way they would under occupation.
I challenge you to find me an example in history of a people who under oppression, apartheid and worse, did not commit atrocities in the name of their right to self determination and freedom.
In the meantime, equating an oppressed people, some of whom are extreme enough to call for genocidal action against their oppressors, with an entire country and their military carrying out a genocide, with genocidal intent, and saying “if they were well equipped they’d be as bad or worse“ is like saying the German Jews might have killed their Nazi oppressors had they had the weapons to do so.
It is intellectually lazy at best and racist at worst.
I am sure the now 41,000 dead Palestinians will sit rest assured by your assertions that currently one of the things standing between their races’ complete destruction and displacement is just a bad as the nation enacting that genocide and displacement.
The brutal fact of the matter is that Palestine has gone through multiple peace processes with Israel, all of which have been broken by Israel, repeatedly.
Who has “settled” whose lands within borders meant to have been agreed and settled in 1967? Who built a border wall, designated as illegal by the international community?
And no, this doesn’t become less true the more line of “well they rejected this and that” in relation to the various accords - if anyone here who is American will not give up their land to a foreign people who demand it, willingly, then why should anyone else?
Palestinian liberation is only going to come when the United States is forced through international pressure to stop funding, aiding and abetting it. Until then, we have the farcical “ceasefire agreement” which has now run and additional three months and killed another 7000 people.
It is abundantly clear to all and sundry now that the USA are, and probably have been always, part of the problem and not the solution. So now we have to deal with the problem.
How is another matter, and I have no real answer for that other than extending BDS from just Israel to the United States of America too, with my apologies to the Americans in this forum who do not support their country’s actions.
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Then why did they attack the cities of Netiv HaAsara, Sderot, and Sufa rather than military bases? You could justify this by saying "they were aiming to take hostages" like you say later on in your post, except that completely contradicts this point that Hamas was "obviously aiming for military targets".
Could I get an estimate from you on how many civilians you believe Hamas killed in contrast to the IDF's Hannibal Directive?
Unfortunately, the Geneva Convention prohibits "recourse to violence against civilians" (Bracka 80), which is again why (as SAC has said) Hamas leaders have warrants out against them for warcrimes as do the leadership of the IDF. Would you condemn these warrants?
It's the border of a heavily guarded concentration camp, any attack anywhere draws a military response and any hostage is a bargaining chip for freeing people from torture camps. I also don't know how perfect you expect the intel of people trapped in a concentration camp to be on where the best places to attack are when the colonizers establish a bunch of towns right on the edges of the concentration camp from which they sit on hills laughing as you get bombed.
No, because it would be absurd to claim anything with certainty, but thank you for the loaded question. I can tell this is definitely being asked in good faith and not as a gotcha.
That's cool and all but the Geneva Conventions are written by a bunch white people from colonizer countries that can afford lofty ideals (and still constantly violate them anyway). I don't actually give a shit that the Geneva Conventions say anything, they aren't my basis for morality even if I happen to agree with plenty of the principles in them. If I condemn something it's because my own moral compass says it's wrong, not because some white people agreed to these stipulations after they had finished pillaging and colonizing the entire global south, then continually averted them through technicalities while continuing to terrorize and exploit the rest of the world. In practice, the conventions only apply to mythical white-westerner on white-westerner warfare, which doesn't happen in the current era. Nobody cares when the west does war crimes during repeated invasions and "police actions" all over the world, and the colonized people fighting back have no reason to respect conventions written without their input by people who were and still are brutalizing and exploiting them.
There is also a marked difference between a colonizer civilian and a civilian on their own land. To act as though Hamas is going out of their way to just indiscriminately attack random people with no blood on their hands is a loaded and faulty premise. The colonizers are quite literally living in stolen homes on stolen land and continually encroaching on what little land Palestinians have left, and a good number of them are attacking, lynching, and shooting Palestinians. Even those who are not are continuing a violent action simply by continuing to exist on stolen land paid for in the blood of Palestinians. How do you suggest Palestinians regain their land - ask them nicely to leave? I would prefer the colonizers leave without bloodshed, but they don't, no matter how you try to appeal to their morality. It is not the fault of the colonized that the peaceful options have failed.
So far in posting about this topic I have discussed the terms 'Hamas' and 'terrorist organization'. I've reviewed the work these 2 terms do in political discourses to give far-distant audiences a false certainty of an ambiguous moral state of affairs, a portrait that accompanies an ethical calculus that would admit virtue in passive uncertainty or at least permit it. Smearing Hamas as a terrorist organization allows distant actors a maximal deflection to justify looking away from an "Israel-Hamas" War that is actually a war of Israel against everyday people living in Gaza. This thread and the news was and is filled with posts about the civilian infrastructure destroyed by Israel, and the casualty count speaks for itself.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/a...he-army-sanctioned-settlers-rule-in-west-bank
The term 'Israeli civilian' is in need of a closer look because, like "Hamas terrorist organization", it does quite a bit of work in these discussions to create the appearance that while Palestinians are being genocided by the Zionist entity they (Palestinians) actually bear some kernel of guilt because of Oct 7th violence that harmed "Israeli civilians". But, while people in Gaza and the West Bank are trapped behind partition walls, military watchtowers, and surveillance mechanisms, nearly all "Israeli civilians" must serve in the military or serve the occupation in other direct ways, with very few exceptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Israel
"Israeli civilians" are also some of the most brutal and adventurist elements of the genocide project. This guardian article is just one I pulled out from today. Here's some I copy pasted from my post history:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023...raeli-settlers-wreak-havoc-on-occupied-nablus
https://apnews.com/article/israel-p...-violence-un-108e11712310b5ea099dbded7be8effb
https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...t-bank-town-palestinian-officials-2023-10-06/
Many Israeli civilians are perpetrators.
The Oct 7th attacks are absolutely condemnable, nonetheless in accounting for the genocide unfolding against Palestinians perpetrated by Zionists, we would do well to remember that some of the most brutal and genocidal acts of violence are carried out by people who are called "Israeli civilians" by the same voices that would tell you Israel is fighting a war against a "terrorist organization" called Hamas.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...89a2-d776-a3b1-fdbe45520000?lts=1725953381595
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09...tive-kidnap-hamas-gaza-hostages-idf/104224430
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default...sessions-regular/session56/a-hrc-56-crp-3.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/world/a...el-idf-hannibal-protocol-hamas-attack-haaretz
Overall conclusion: numbers not known. Eight Apaches and a tank group used on October 7th, accounting for the significant damage to the Kibbutz's and cars at the music festival.
OHCHR points out that Israel was quick to bury the dead, destroyed cars, and demolish a number of buildings directly after. This stopped the OHCHR from investigating sexual violations as a weapon of war, though much of the evidence does indicate that it happened. It makes for awful reading and I advise caution when reading that section.
So we will likely never know - but it is also potentially sizeable given the weaponry involved.
No independent investigation has been allowed by Israel to confirm or deny any of the allegations made.
The OHCHR report is sombre reading, what is known about the October 7 attacks and the footage used to confirm them is given throughout.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed atrocities on October 7, that is primarily why there are ICC arrest warrants out for the leaders.
There’s also no doubt in my mind that Israel’s response, as it has been throughout its history, was brutal, likely significantly in excess, and with the aim to cause maximum damage to infrastructure and prevent hostages being taken.
I'm not saying you are wrong. I am just saying that this is the exact argument I heard my grandpa make to justify the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You have every right to hate Israel, but be careful to make sure that that hate doesn't evolve into hate for the Israeli people. A sizable bit of them might glorify the genocide, but that doesn't mean they all do. This is not me disputing your post, but I am trying to make sure you do not fall down the slippery slope.
ok, this still applies, but in hindsight, me perceiving someone being critical of Israeli civilians potentially leading to antisemitism while also finding the idea of someone perceiving me as fascist for defending criticisms of Hamas outlandish is a bit hypocritical.
Her people is being genocided right now and very few are doing anything to stop it, in fact the most powerful country in the world is supporting it. Would you tell a jew during the holocaust to not hate German people in general? Whom she hates or not is not really important, stoping the genocide is.
yes? are you trying to defend racism? a person, or even a government doing something bad is not an excuse to hate the whole demographic. I don't think I need to tell you this. Yes, we all want to stop the genocide, and yes, it is infuriating that no one is doing anything about it, and yes, stoping the genocide is more important than a single persons views on a race. but we are on a competitive pokemon website. the odds of us stopping the genocide are practically zero. what we have far more say in are the racial views of people on this website. what kind of logic is this? we cant focus on one issue, because another is more pressing? the world rapidly becoming completely uninhabitable is more pressing than the genocide, so why do we focus on that? what the fuck is your point?
You are talking to a real person who is going through one of the worst things in the world, maybe don't imply that she is antisemitic or try to control her feelings about what she is going through. That's my point. Get down from your high horse.
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That’s quite the take, what did your grandfather actually say?
It goes both ways.
Note how Hamas = all Palestinians and Palestine in most western media and they are constantly, consistently dehumanised.
You popping up to basically say “hey don’t hate the people, hate the state, don’t be racist“ reeks of entitlement and opportunism, if I may say so, and with respect is part of why you were called out earlier in this very thread.
And yes, racism is obviously wrong. So is hypocrisy.
I had missed this: is this McCarthy-ism by any chance?
Yes we should be critical of some citizens of Israel. We have in the last month seen a significant number riot for the right to rape Palestinian prisoners.
Yes, there are also Israeli civilians protesting against their government, mostly in relation to the hostages and not the genocide.
Yes, there are also some very few Israeli citizens who are protesting and trying to protect Palestinians from Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
Israel as a country is currently ruled by a far right, nationalist, military led and undoubtedly fascist government. Yes we should criticise the country and its inhabitants for its current actions, stance and the many, many documented human rights violations across every sector of the country.
Criticising Israel and Israelis for obviously unacceptable behaviours is not antisemitism. At least not here, legally, in the UK. Despite the previous conservative governments efforts.
Besides which:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/...-killed-american-west-bank-protest-rcna170370
I mean, given there are eye witnesses, footage, photographs and an autopsy confirming a bullet wound to the head, I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear the IDF state for what must be the thousandth or so time in this year, that this was a “tragic accident” and “accidently shot”.
Here’s my not so hot take: yet another lie.
This is an American citizen deliberately shot dead. And there are Americans out there who believe Israel is an ally?
Well then. This is a far more reasonable point.
First of all, for the second and probably not last time, let me say that I didn't know she was Palestinian. I generally don't pay attention to these things, so this probably won't be the last time this happens.
Now, I wasn't trying to imply that she was antisemitic necessarily, but I saw that she was potentially on the path to antisemitism, and so I wanted to make her aware of that. However, knowing now that she has a personal connection to the atrocities being committed, I wish I was far more sympathetic in my original post. I am sorry Myzozoa. It is easier to say don't be racist when you aren't the victim of a genocide. While this still wouldn't excuse you perse if you became antisemitic, I doubt anyone could possibly blame you. I can't say I would live up to the standard I set if I were in your position. Know that I, and everyone else here, are wishing you well.
Civilian: a person not currently in the armed services or the police force
While Israelis are forced to be “soldiers” in the IDF due to their government forcing them to conscript, those that are not actually going out and killing Palestinian civilians are, in my eyes, civilians (those who do kill civilians are soldiers and thus are a legal target). Would you consider zero Israelis to be civilians? Presumably not. Where would you draw the line between civilian forced to be in the military and actual soldier?
Is this the fault of the civilians or the genocidal Israeli leadership forcing conscription?
Great, looks like we’ve found a common ground here.
My grandpa believes that because of Japanese propaganda, literally every single Japanese citizen would kill Americans if given the chance, and that justifies America subjecting thousands of citizens to indescribable torture. He also pulled an entirely incorrect statistic (though I cannot remember what), and said that this was also completely acceptable because "war is hell".
I'm not going to throw my hat into the ring on "is Hamas/Israel a terrorist organization", but I'm going to say my take on what the phrase is and what it means. I am a language and history nerd, so pardon me.
On the face of it, the first fact is that the word "terrorist" is extremely emotionally charged in the context of war, and the focus on the word is a modern invention. As a history buff, I can tell you that almost every warring nation in history could be considered a terrorist force, some more than others of course. "Strategic bombing" of civilians during World War II is essentially just terrorism from a plane with the explicit goal, from the "great minds" of the operation, being to shock people into going against their government. While some strategic bombing was of (civilians, mainly) doing things such as factory work, a decent amount of the time it really was just to decrease moral.
I will also say here that is there is a difference between a group being a "terrorist organization" and committing acts of terror; this comes down to geopolitics and the legitimacy of a group. The United States, for instance, has committed acts of terror, but that does not make it a terrorist organization, because a "terrorist organization" inherently adds a connotation that it is a group mainly designated to commit terrorist acts, and not mainly a governing body/nation.
Essentially, for me, a terrorist organization is an organization that is not the legitimate governing body of a nation (regardless of if they wish to be) that commits terrorist acts. Terrorist acts being defined as attacks on a civilian population in order to incite terror.
As a bonus round, what is committing an act of genocide? Genocide is also a modern concept, and it is also emotionally charged; however, it is a word that can objectively be used in this context. Genocide is an all-encompassing word that describes a movement/initative towards the eradication of a group of people for specific traits that you aim to remove. This includes starving a population, directly killing them, forcing them to remove parts of their culture, destroying their culture, spreading disease amongst them, getting rid of ways for people of a group to know they are of that group, etc. with the express intent of eradication.
For instance, the idea of assimilation in a lot of historical contexts is actually genocidal, since the intention is to get rid of their culture, heritage and identity via indoctrination.
One of the keywords with all of the above words is intent, because killing civilians is and always will be a part of war and geopolitical conflict. Always. You don't bomb another country hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times without innocent people dying.
On the face of it, the first fact is that the word "terrorist" is extremely emotionally charged in the context of war, and the focus on the word is a modern invention. As a history buff, I can tell you that almost every warring nation in history could be considered a terrorist force, some more than others of course. "Strategic bombing" of civilians during World War II is essentially just terrorism from a plane with the explicit goal, from the "great minds" of the operation, being to shock people into going against their government. While some strategic bombing was of (civilians, mainly) doing things such as factory work, a decent amount of the time it really was just to decrease moral.
I will also say here that is there is a difference between a group being a "terrorist organization" and committing acts of terror; this comes down to geopolitics and the legitimacy of a group. The United States, for instance, has committed acts of terror, but that does not make it a terrorist organization, because a "terrorist organization" inherently adds a connotation that it is a group mainly designated to commit terrorist acts, and not mainly a governing body/nation.
Essentially, for me, a terrorist organization is an organization that is not the legitimate governing body of a nation (regardless of if they wish to be) that commits terrorist acts. Terrorist acts being defined as attacks on a civilian population in order to incite terror.
As a bonus round, what is committing an act of genocide? Genocide is also a modern concept, and it is also emotionally charged; however, it is a word that can objectively be used in this context. Genocide is an all-encompassing word that describes a movement/initative towards the eradication of a group of people for specific traits that you aim to remove. This includes starving a population, directly killing them, forcing them to remove parts of their culture, destroying their culture, spreading disease amongst them, getting rid of ways for people of a group to know they are of that group, etc. with the express intent of eradication.
For instance, the idea of assimilation in a lot of historical contexts is actually genocidal, since the intention is to get rid of their culture, heritage and identity via indoctrination.
One of the keywords with all of the above words is intent, because killing civilians is and always will be a part of war and geopolitical conflict. Always. You don't bomb another country hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times without innocent people dying.
People born in Israel did not settle there. There definitely are Isreali civilians.
At odds with my late grandfather, who served in the Pacific during WW2 as a British royal engineer and had good reason to hold more extreme views due to time in a POW camp (but never did).
Dehumanisation is always the problem.
We all bleed the same.
The absoloute fucking nerve of some of the people in this thread frankly shocks me. When someone's entire civilization is slowly, systematically being cleansed off the planet, when their chance of death is rising by the day, when they can't even find solice in their own home due to an invading force of colonisers commiting genocide in broad daylight, you try and lecture them on "racism" and tell them they shouldn't get too emotional, they might say something not fitting your idealistic vision of virtue. If you yourself have not had to deal with the atrocities she has has to deal with at all, let alone on an almost daily basis, you have no right to lecture her on opinions she holds against those who are directly benefitting and actively, or even passively participating in this bloodbath of the Palestinian people.
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