Serious The Politics Thread

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lilyhollow said:
The global south represents the overwhelming majority.
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If this issue is decided by majority consensus of "the global south" (which is the latest euphemism for developing countries that funnily includes countries at the same latitude as the USA), let's ask the two most populous countries in it that might even themselves be a majority opinion if you exclude the west: China and India.

China keeps its Muslims in concentration camps in Xinjiang and the population generally at least dislikes them. The CCP's position on Israel/Palestine is purely out of its foreign policy strategy of being the one who actually respects international law and national sovereignty as opposed to the US.
India has had centuries of (violent) history with regards to Islam, and ever since the partition between India and Pakistan in 1947 the relationship has never really improved, especially in the current Hindu nationalist government.

lilyhollow said:
The era of the U.S. dictating to the world who is or isn't a terrorist simply is over.
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The world order is becoming multipolar, but it remains unclear if that will result in a complete deletion and reversal of the western moral order. That did happen when Rome fell and it took a thousand years before people started really looking back at greek/roman philosophy and thought, but that was a pre-literacy pre-digital time. Making prognostications about the future like this is always a crapshoot though, with the impending double whammy of collapse in birth rates + climate crisis.
 
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I love how a user who was previously banned for posting literal propaganda can come back, post more propaganda and call me an Islamophobe, and suffer no other punishment than having the offending section of their post edited out.
 
Just want to be clear on this: that portion of the post wasn't directed at you, DbD. I didn't name the person is was directed at because I didn't want to invite a discussion with them (from what I've seen of their posts, they're aggressive and I don't want to be dealing with that).

I'm sorry about not being explicit about who that was referencing, since it obviously did cause confusion. In fairness, the other user did say that supporters of Yahya Sinwar don't exist, and you agreed with their post. I think it's absolutely fair to say that this is at best a dehumanizing minimization of the experiences of Arabs and Muslim people, and oppressed people generally. It assumes that their opinions are completely irrelevant or even nonexistent, which they aren't: they do exist, and they're actually extraordinarily important.

I think you can understand why I don't want to turn this into some extended debate with you, or honestly anyone really. I just want to occasionally show my support for the resistance at this point.



Also I want to add: bc of the mod edit, the post now really reads like I'm purely going after DbD as an individual. I want to be 100% clear that I'm targeting western liberals in general with that post. I tried to use two users in this thread as examples, but they're just that, examples.
 
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lilyhollow said:
I wish I could say I'm surprised, but this is sadly not new. Months ago, I had a discussion about this topic with Dead by Daylight, who essentially argued that 'Hamas is a terrorist organization because it is recognized as a terrorist organization by many countries.' When I asked which countries, he admitted that it was entirely western and western-allied governments--a small minority, representing a fraction of the world's population. This includes the U.S., the U.K., and Israel. You know, the extremely trustworthy countries who are currently participating in the mass slaughter of Palestinians, using the 'terrorism' lie as a pretext.

This is the true face of liberalism exposed. In these people's minds, the west is the majority. They believe that western governments are the center of the world. People in the global south are essentially not people to them. They use humanitarian-sounding language only when it suits them, only so they can maintain the illusion that they believe in anything remotely resembling justice.

Let's dispel one illusion. The west is in the overwhelming minority. The global south represents the overwhelming majority.

This 'debate' is already settled. What I post in this thread has zero impact on this. The era of the U.S. dictating to the world who is or isn't a terrorist simply is over.

Eventually, whether they like it or not, westerners will have to come to a painful realization: they are not superior to other human beings. They don't get to decide how the resistance to their genocide is perceived. The west has no say in this at all. History is 100% guaranteed to look back on Yahya Sinwar and Hamas as world-historic national liberation fighters.
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oh wow, i didnt expect for the smogon politics channel to devolve down to denying basic facts such as hamas being a terrorist organization. terrorist sympathizing is fascinating to see

dismissing every western country's reasoning for why they are a terrorist is one level of delusion i can live with since its fairly common in far left places like these, but if u wanted some non western places that consider hamas a terrorist organization, feel free to look at Egypt marking them as one in 2015. Jordan didnt label them as a terrorist organization, but removed multiple hamas leaders from their countries cause they were a threat to internal stability (take this as u want), UAE in 2014 for similar reasons as egypt labelled them as one (having ties to the muslim brotherhood), saudi Arabia didnt fully recognize them as one, but they heavily cracked down on Hamas activities in their countries in 2020, similar to jordan, take this as u will.

african union (that is made up of like 55 countries) has a whole framework on this, and Hamas met EVERY single act of terrorism they have laid out. the sole reason it has not been labelled as a terrorist organization is cause they are in support of the Palestinian cause, so they avoid calling Hamas a terrorist group in fear of more conflict between israel. its a pretty interesting topic, feel free to do an ounce of research on this before just spewing misinformation

lebanese government is in a fucky situation with hamas cause of the influence of hazbullah, but we will see what happens between them in the future

nearly every country around them, except the ones that are basically controlled by terrorist organizations see them as some form of threat, but ig its just all western propaganda too huh

Terrorist sympathizers are something I'll never truly understand
 
Fardin said:
Terrorist sympathizers are something I'll never truly understand
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Yeah, me either. I don't understand why people would stretch so hard to defend a militant religious fanatic group that targets children and civilians, r*pes prisoners, and commits war crimes. Oh hang on, you weren't talking about the IDF, were you?

Do you consider the IDF a terrorist organization?
 
I'll give you this fardin, I literally don't know how to counter that post. You intentionally listed dozens of governments that you explicitly state do not claim Hamas is a terrorist org. Thanks, I guess? I think I'll just let you keep posting and helping me out I guess?
 
lilyhollow said:
I'll give you this fardin, I literally don't know how to counter that post. You intentionally listed dozens of governments that you explicitly state do not claim Hamas is a terrorist org. Thanks, I guess? I think I'll just let you keep posting and helping me out I guess?
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I think your problem is that you can't understand that a group can be a terrorist group and still have justifiable objectives. Nobody is coming to save the Palestinians, so in that context I can't really blame the Palestinians for lashing out even if its a lost cause. There might be an argument that it's more wise to be peaceful and appeal to western sympathy but I really do believe that the US would never actually do anything to stop settlements in the West Bank so I'm not going to make that argument. The west also doesn't do a damn thing to stop Chinese genocides of the Tibetans and Ugygurs. It's easy for me to say that the Tibetans/Ugygurs are doing the right thing here by not forming a similar group to Hamas when really there isn't a right thing to do here. The Palestinians are pretty much gonna get genocided regardless of what Hamas does unless the US changes heart, and it's very easy to understand why that would push Hamas to do terrorist acts even if its a lost cause. But I think I could agree much more with what you are saying if you would just agree that Hamas is a terrorist group, and then argue why that they are still justified rather than making the absolutely ridiculous argument that they are not a terrorist group which nobody arguing in good faith could possibly believe in.
 
M2H said:
I think your problem is that you can't understand that a group can be a terrorist group and still have justifiable objectives. Nobody is coming to save the Palestinians, so in that context I can't really blame the Palestinians for lashing out even if its a lost cause. There might be an argument that it's more wise to be peaceful and appeal to western sympathy but I really do believe that the US would never actually do anything to stop settlements in the West Bank so I'm not going to make that argument. The west also doesn't do a damn thing to stop Chinese genocides of the Tibetans and Ugygurs. It's easy for me to say that the Tibetans/Ugygurs are doing the right thing here by not forming a similar group to Hamas when really there isn't a right thing to do here. The Palestinians are pretty much gonna get genocide regardless of what Hamas does unless the US changes heart, and it's very easy to understand why that would push Hamas to do terrorist acts even if its a lost cause. But I think I could agree much more with what you are saying if you would just agree that Hamas is a terrorist group, and then argue why that they are still justified rather than making the absolutely ridiculous argument that they are not a terrorist group which nobody arguing in good faith could possibly believe in.
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The problem here is that 'terrorist group' is an extremely loaded term that only really gets applied to groups outside of the global north. If two groups commit identical atrocities, one being a 'terrorist group' and the other being the government of a colonialist project friendly to the U.S., far more attention is given to the 'terrorists'. When our allies do it, we cover it up. If we can't cover it up, we downplay it. If we can't downplay it, then we blame it on a single figurehead or a small group of 'bad apples' instead of recognizing it as a systemic problem, despite having no such qualms painting organizations like HAMAS or even, in all too many cases, Palestinians as a whole with a broad brush. There is a painfully obvious double standard here that makes discussions about whether or not a group are 'terrorists' a complete red herring intended to distract from and delegitimize the cause they're fighting for.

If we want to talk about whether or not HAMAS has committed atrocities, that's a different question. I would consider it a somewhat tone-deaf one as long as the genocide is ongoing (as I've said before, putting so much focus on the crimes of HAMAS while ignoring or downplaying the atrocities Israel commits on a daily basis is a form of whitewashing Israel, and we also aren't in any kind of position to condemn the people of Gaza for not being perfect victims, but I think you agree with at least that latter point), but discussing whether or not HAMAS is a terrorist organization is useless. The IDF has committed every action we associate with terrorism, and I don't hear a single person, especially liberals and centrists, condemn them as terrorists. If the IDF can do the same things HAMAS does but not be labeled terrorists, then what does the label actually mean?
 
lilyhollow said:
If your position is that "Hamas are terrorists, but they are good terrorists and their terrorism deserves support" or something like that, then I don't really know where that would leave us. It would just be a purely semantic distinction at that point
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Probably something more like "justifiable terrorists" than "good terrorists." I do believe that Hamas is fighting a losing battle and will inevitably just cause more suffering for the Palestinian people than they are already going to inevitably face. The thing is that the Palestinians are basically doomed unless they get a superpower country to directly sponsor their cause which nobody really wants/can do. At that point, objectively I think we can say it would be better for Hamas to lay down their arms or at least shift their priorities somewhat (not using civilians as human shields would be a good start! (which its understandable -- Hamas can't win an even fight with Israel, but still)) but of course global conflicts don't really work that way. I honestly think my sentiment is mostly representative of what everybody actually thinks in this thread, but people posture to 'win' the debate rather than say what they actually believe.
 
M2H said:
Probably something more like "justifiable terrorists" than "good terrorists." I do believe that Hamas is fighting a losing battle and will inevitably just cause more suffering for the Palestinian people than they are already going to inevitably face. The thing is that the Palestinians are basically doomed unless they get a superpower country to directly sponsor their cause which nobody really wants/can do. At that point, objectively I think we can say it would be better for Hamas to lay down their arms or at least shift their priorities somewhat (not using civilians as human shields would be a good start! (which its understandable -- Hamas can't win an even fight with Israel, but still)) but of course global conflicts don't really work that way. I honestly think my sentiment is mostly representative of what everybody actually thinks in this thread, but people posture to 'win' the debate rather than say what they actually believe.
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The israelis don't exactly hide their intent. They want the Palestinian's dead or off of their (Palestinian) native land. At what point does one say ok, enough and fight back against such genocidal rhetoric does that make them terrorists? Also repeating the human shield trope is telling
 
Fardin said:
for the people who arent too far gone in the propaganda battle between hamas and israel, u can support Palestine while denouncing Hamas and Sinwar, who was just a vile and murderous terrorist who was consistently against any peace deals, and solely believed in depraved warfare as the sole method to salvation
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This. 100% this. A thousand times this. It is absolutely possible to be pro-Palestinian and anti-Hamas at the same time. There is no contradiction between agreeing with the ICJ rulings, UN demands, and hoping for peace and liberation to one day come to Palestine, while also denouncing the methods that Hamas has used to achieve the very same things.

Also S.A.C. Martin and lilyhollow an organisation can be a resistance movement/freedom fighter group and a terrorist organisation at the same time. Killing hundreds of ordinary Israeli civilians as well as taking 250 of them hostage is undoubtedly an act of terrorism, even if it was carried out in the name of resistance or as an act of fighting for Palestine's freedom. Likewise, the IDF's actions in the Gaza Strip since October 7 are also undoubtedly an act of terrorism despite the Israeli government claiming that they are being carried out in the name of self defence. When determining if something is an act of terrorism or not, what fundamentally matters is the act itself, irregardless of any surrounding context. There are other actions that Hamas could have undertaken that would not qualify as terrorism; what they actually did on October 7th absolutely was.

S.A.C. Martin said:
Zionists/Israel/Israelis and their allies should not have been occupying and applying apartheid and collective punishment to the Palestinians in the first place.
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I agree with this. However,

S.A.C. Martin said:
In short, if you’re arguing that Palestinians need to be perfect fighters in resistance to their oppression, you’ve missed the goddamn point
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No. Evil does not justify further evil; two wrongs do not make a right. We can - and should - hold Hamas to standards when it comes to their resistance. The Israeli government should absolutely be held accountable for the gross evil they have committed against ordinary Palestinian citizens, however we should also hold Hamas accountable for the (lesser) evil they have committed against Israeli civilians.

S.A.C. Martin said:
Sorry but you’re white washing a genocide.

Not really a good faith argument. I’m out.
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I laugh reacted this post not because I disagree with the notion that Israel has committed war crimes (as you later asserted), but because this post here is so far missing the mark that it's comical. (As much as anything can be comical when discussing such a grave topic). Fardin did not - anywhere - in his post try to justify Israel's actions or "white wash" a genocide. All he was pointing out was Yahya Sinwar is nowhere near as good of a person as lilyhollow was making him out to be. Criticising one person, or even one side, in this conflict does mean that you are excusing the other side. Not at all.

Divine Retribution said:
Interesting that the IDF can bomb as many civilians as they want, target journalists, shoot toddlers in the head, SA prisoners, commit blatant war crimes, and enact collective punishment on the people of Gaza and libs don't call them terrorists. Tell me, what's the difference between the actions of HAMAS and the actions of the IDF? Besides us having way more evidence of the IDF's crimes than many of the crimes attributed to HAMAS, of course.
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Idk if I count as a liberal under your definition, but I have consistently condemned Israel's actions and have designated the Israeli government/IDF as a terrorist organisation throughout my posts. The only reason that I spend more time in my posts arguing against Hamas' actions than I do against Israel's is because this thread is fundamentally much more pro-Palestinian than it is pro-Israeli, and so there are significantly more pro-Hamas posts to push back against than there are pro-Israel posts. I think the same thing is true of others who have criticised Hamas in this thread too. If that ratio was somehow reversed and this thread was notably pro-Israel, I would spend much more time in my posts arguing against Israel instead.

Divine Retribution said:
Why is it whenever some rabid Zionist comes in here to spout dehumanizing propaganda about how Palestinians are barbaric savages and Israel are the bringers of civilization or whatever, you bend over backwards to legitimize and signal boost them
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Could you please provide more evidence of this occurring? I can only remember this occurring literally once, about a year ago just after the October 7th attacks, when one guy called Islam a 'backwards religion' or something like that and claimed Israel was a better civilisation because you could host a pride rally there (or something along those lines). If you have further examples of that, please do inform us - as it stands I can't help but agree with MrHands that this part of your post is essentially a straw man.

lilyhollow said:
I'll give you this fardin, I literally don't know how to counter that post. You intentionally listed dozens of governments that you explicitly state do not claim Hamas is a terrorist org. Thanks, I guess? I think I'll just let you keep posting and helping me out I guess?
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Bruh this post is such a bad misunderstanding of Fardin's post that there's no way you're not being deliberately obtuse. If overwhelming Muslim-majority countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia are cracking down on Hamas leaders and/or Hamas' activities rather than supporting their fight against Jewish oppressors, what does that say about Hamas as an organisation? If Egypt and the UAE, which have 90%+ and 75%+ Muslim populations, explicitly state that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, then again, what does that say about Hamas as a whole? How do you overlook the fact that the 55 African countries he listed recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation in all but name, and the reasons that they do not do so are completely political in nature? This post is absolutely ridiculous.

Divine Retribution said:
If two groups commit identical atrocities, one being a 'terrorist group' and the other being the government of a colonialist project friendly to the U.S., far more attention is given to the 'terrorists'.
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I agree. That's why we need to normalise applying the language of 'terrorist' and 'terrorism' to the Israeli government and IDF too, as a means to help people understand that they are in the wrong in this conflict, just as Hamas are.

M2H said:
Probably something more like "justifiable terrorists" than "good terrorists." I do believe that Hamas is fighting a losing battle and will inevitably just cause more suffering for the Palestinian people than they are already going to inevitably face. The thing is that the Palestinians are basically doomed unless they get a superpower country to directly sponsor their cause which nobody really wants/can do. At that point, objectively I think we can say it would be better for Hamas to lay down their arms or at least shift their priorities somewhat (not using civilians as human shields would be a good start! (which its understandable -- Hamas can't win an even fight with Israel, but still)) but of course global conflicts don't really work that way. I honestly think my sentiment is mostly representative of what everybody actually thinks in this thread, but people posture to 'win' the debate rather than say what they actually believe.
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I fundamentally disagree with the idea that there's such a thing as 'justifiable terrorism', but I just wanted to give a heads up - I would suggest editing the 'using civilians' part of your post to make it clear that you're referring to Hamas' use of hostages as human shields (at least, that's what I'm assuming you're referring to), otherwise you're going to get a bunch of people nitpicking this part of the post and claiming that you're buying into IDF propaganda about Hamas basing their command centres in hospitals/schools/densely populated areas etc. EDIT: too late, it already happened.
 
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tada said:
The israelis don't exactly hide their intent. They want the Palestinian's dead or off of their (Palestinian) native land. At what point does one say ok, enough and fight back against such genocidal rhetoric does that make them terrorists? Also repeating the human shield trope is telling
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It's justifiable, but they are still terrorists, and are certainly not 'good guys.' Like Grey Waves said, I am referring to the use of hostages and not allowing civilians to leave war zones when I refer to using human shields. These approaches might be a force multiplier in dissuading the Israelis from using their full arsenal (idk if it does, that is just my best defense of the practice!), but even then it definitely causes more unnecessary suffering to be caused by Palestinians.
 
To simplify things for the genocide apologists: Those who break out of a concentration camp are not the bad guys. Those who put them there are. The people who are in said camp=Palestinians who are in this case represented by Hamas. Those who put them there=Zionist Israelis. So with that being stated how on earth could Hamas be seen as terrorists? That'd be like calling those who did the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising terrorists which is nonsense.
 
tada said:
To simplify things for the genocide apologists: Those who break out of a concentration camp are not the bad guys. Those who put them there are. The people who are in said camp=Palestinians who are in this case represented by Hamas. Those who put them there=Zionist Israelis. So with that being stated how on earth could Hamas be seen as terrorists? That'd be like calling those who did the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising terrorists which is nonsense.
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who in the thread is apologizing for genocide?
 
M2H said:
who in the thread is apologizing for genocide?
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Its a common trend when talking to people on the far left. dont expect a lot of good faith interpretations of anything ur saying. if u dont support hamas or Sinwar, ur automatically in favor of genocide


its fun talking to them purely because they are just so factually wrong on nearly every topic ever, but when u start looking for good faith engagements with anything ur saying, this isnt the right place
 
tada said:
People like you, faradin, mr. hands and one other who I can't remember at the moment for equating hamas as terrorists for fighting back against people who'd love more to see them all dead.
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If they didn't kill civilians, they would not be terrorists. Your comparison to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising isn't a good comparison because (to my knowledge) the escapees that participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising did not target German civilians or do otherwise terrorist activities. They were purely a militia group, unlike Hamas.
 
Even though they do kill civilians, I still call them "justified terrorists." If you interpret the world in a black/white way such that one side is good and one side is bad then yeah we are never going to be able to agree on anything geopolitics. Hamas sucks and they are terrorists but Israel's actions are much worse. The US shouldn't give Israel money until they stop settling on the West Bank. Debate over.
 
If you think that it's ever possible for a group to be justified in committing acts of terrorism, what's the point in arguing about whether Hamas's tactics constitute terrorism or not? If you think that Hamas is justified in doing what they are doing for the purposes of combating Israel, then continuously returning to the question of whether they're terrorists or not seems to me like a distraction from what's really important at this moment in time. If you want to have a conversation about their tactics and behaviors, the time to do that will be after Israel's genocidal activities have ceased. Until then, it's just a diversion.
 
adjectivenoun said:
If you think that it's ever possible for a group to be justified in committing acts of terrorism, what's the point in arguing about whether Hamas's tactics constitute terrorism or not? If you think that Hamas is justified in doing what they are doing for the purposes of combating Israel, then continuously returning to the question of whether they're terrorists or not seems to me like a distraction from what's really important at this moment in time. If you want to have a conversation about their tactics and behaviors, the time to do that will be after Israel's genocidal activities have ceased. Until then, it's just a diversion.
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That appears to be what the current debate is about. I don't see any Zionists in the thread, but I'm sure there have been at some point but they aren't here right now. I am only seeing people that thing Hamas are completely innocent angels (or otherwise that we should support them without any reservations) and people that think both sides are wrong on some level but Israel is probably worse. It's not a diversion in that I have no ulterior motive in arguing as I'm not interested in advocacy. I'm simply saying what I believe to be true.
 
adjectivenoun said:
If you want to have a conversation about their tactics and behaviors, the time to do that will be after Israel's genocidal activities have ceased. Until then, it's just a diversion.
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I disagree. I think it's pretty damn valid to say that Hamas has an understandable underlying reason for fighting against Israel, but I think their long history of terrorism is abhorrent. You may think that "now is not the time to discuss this", but there are plenty of people who disagree.
 
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