Israel - Hamas War VI

[Craving Peaches]

35 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:

There we go. IDF has the moral superiority over all militaries, ever.

Quote

Al Jazeera’s Wael Dahdouh, who is in Gaza City right now, says heavy smoke can be seen in the area and Israel is carrying out air strikes using white phosphorous on civilian houses.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

As previously discussed that was an awful move by Hamas. Doesn't affect Israel's obligation to protect innocent civilians in any way.

I'd suggest telling everyone to leave and giving them fair warning is making quite a large effort, far more than most other militaries would give in the circumstances. 

In a conflict where one side is purposefully targeting civilians, parading the naked bodies of rape victims, executing people at music festivals, kidnapping children, murdering babies.. and then ordering Gazan residents to stay in place so they can use their deaths as propaganda.. it does seem strange spend so much time criticising a side that tells civilians to leave before attacking an area. 

[kissdbyfire]

6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Plus what if you don't evacuate because Hamas has told you not to, because your main utility is as a human shield and as a tool to provoke outrage when you die. 

Let me see if I’m understanding this correctly. On one side we have a vile terrorist organisation using their own people as human shields and on the other side we have one of the most well trained, efficient and best equipped military in the world, who have every right to defend themselves and their country. Caught in the middle, quite literally, are thousands upon thousands of women, men, children & elderly civilians who can’t run because the fucking terrorists won’t let them, and who have nowhere to go because none of the neighbouring countries will let them in. We also have almost 200 hostages trapped in this hellish situation. And the best that humanity has to offer is, “yeah, well, fuck them b/c there’s no other way to get to the nasty terrorists”. 
If this doesn’t prove once and for all what a massive failure humankind is, I don’t know what will.

[Luzifer's right hand]

According the German news source the Israelis identified the skull of Shani Louk a German/Israeli citizen who was paraded naked shortly after the attacks. A lot of pro-Palestinian sources claimed she was still alive and that they transported her to a hospital. Instead it looks like she was beheaded(likely posthumous). The mother understandable believed the lies of the pro-Palestinian sources.

Edit: The beading detail comes from an interview of the president of Israel with the German tabloid Bild.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Luzifer's right hand

[Craving Peaches]

4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

In a conflict where one side is purposefully targeting civilians, parading the naked bodies of rape victims, executing people at music festivals, kidnapping children, murdering babies.. and then ordering Gazan residents to stay in place so they can use their deaths as propaganda..

Everyone here has repeatedly criticised Hamas. It is not in dispute that what Hamas did was atrocious. Hamas is a terrorist organisation with genocidal intent. This is blindingly obvious. By contrast, Israel is supposed to be a law-abiding, democratic state. And it is disputed whether what Israel is doing is wrong or not, whereas there is unanimous agreement that what Hamas did was wrong. So, I would expect the volume of discussion with regards to Israel to be greater.

[polishgenius]

On the discussion about Hasan earlier: he shouldn't necessarily be dismissed just for being a twitch streamer, but he should be dismissed for being an idiot with cardboard-cutout opinions and almost no ability to comprehend nuance on the fly. 

 

 

[SuperHans]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

His profession is Twitch streamer. 

Says the guy who runs a messageboard for fans of dragon books. What makes you any more of an expert than the twitch guy?

 

 

[Crixus]

I think many of us can agree this guy is pretty damned smart and knows what he's talking about (Harari, not fucking Morgan, though I have to admit the latter's provided more of a forum to Palestinians than many others). He's also Israeli and had family who were trapped and nearly killed during the horrific October 7 attack. He's talking about Israel's responsibility here in terms of retaliation, and seems to have compassion for innocent Palestinians who are caught in the crossfire and used/victimised by Hamas. Interestingly, he doesn't put the onus on them to overthrow Hamas - rather, he goes so far as to say Israel should consider taking in women and children whilst the operation happens. 

Loads of other great points, including how using historical injuries to justify inflicting more injuries isn't cool. 

[Rippounet]

Pretty good article (by a journalist) from one of my favorite sources (independent French media) that explains a lot:

 

Quote

 

The conflict that drives you crazy

[...]

In Europe and the United States, the State of Israel is primarily perceived through the lens of the Holocaust, as a refuge for victims of European anti-Semitism. This perception creates an unshakable, systematic, and unreal aura of innocence surrounding all actions of its government and army. Regardless of what it does, this state is seen as a hero or a victim, embodying virtue, and any criticism against it is often construed as anti-Semitism.

In contrast, the Arab world, which had no involvement in the Holocaust, and the broader Southern perspective, view Israel for what it is. In more practical terms, it's seen as a heavily armed state unconditionally supported by the world's leading superpower, founded on colonialism, and responsible for the massacre or expulsion of a significant portion of the Palestinian population in 1948. Israel is viewed as an occupying force in the West Bank and Gaza, ignoring UN resolutions, and implementing a policy of apartheid (or "separate development") through numerous human rights abuses and land confiscations.

As terrible as the Hamas attack may have been, it hasn't changed the fundamentally imbalanced power dynamic between the occupier and the occupied. [...]

The memory of colonialism, rather than religious solidarity, plays a crucial role in the support of Arab countries for the Palestinians (this is especially the case in Algeria). This support is sometimes also influenced by a direct, concrete experience of conflicts in the Middle East. [...] As researcher Gilbert Achcar succinctly puts it, "outside the Western world, Israelis are not seen – I am not referring to Jews in general, but specifically to Israelis – as heroes or victims, but as settlers, participants in a settler colonialism."

The Southern perspective is shared in the West by many people who themselves experience racism or carry a family memory of colonialism. It is also embraced by left-wing political activists, including many Jews. All these individuals are sensitive to the injustice experienced by the Palestinians, but they are also aware of the disastrous consequences of the policies pursued thus far, including for Israelis.

Encouraging the latter group to cling to the heroic narrative is, in fact, pushing them further down a misguided path, akin to giving a traveler a deliberately incomplete map of the country they are about to traverse. This isn't "support"; it's a poisoned gift.

[...]

For the West, however, the "heroic" narrative is a blessing. It allows them to achieve a double, or even triple, objective: by fanatically supporting Israeli policies, Europeans delegate the rather risky role of safeguarding their interests in the Middle East to that state. They absolve themselves (or believe they absolve themselves) of their guilt in the Holocaust conveniently. And, shielded by this virtuous facade, they can give free rein to their suppressed colonial impulses without any constraints, as reflected in their perception and treatment of Palestinians.

[...]

The idyllic view of Israel, combined with significant anti-Arab racism, leads its Western allies to either disdain or demonize the Palestinians. This often results in justifying, and even approving, their suppression, which is perceived as a legitimate defense on the part of the occupier. Listening to them, one might get the impression that it is Palestine occupying Israel, rather than the other way around.

https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/291023/le-conflit-qui-rend-fou

 

The North-South symbolic opposition is something I'd seen (mentioned to a couple of colleagues in the past few weeks actually), but struggled to articulate properly. I'd have more to add on that though, in the current context.

I've also noticed a kind of temporal axis, whereby "right-wing" observers (they're generally on the right generally speaking, though for some it will depend on the issue) tend to ignore the past to focus on what has just happened or is happening, whereas "left-wing" observers will take a much broader historical perspective. I've seen this play out in numerous discussions: on climate change, on affirmative action, on immigration... and here on Israel.
There's a common theme, because people do tend to have a coherent view of the world.
This translates to academia btw, with the "left" systematically studying the past as deterministic factors, while the "right" likes to insist on individual agency. This is why there is such a "liberal bias" in academia (studying makes you see determinism - except in orthodox economics), whereas successful individuals (or individuals whose personal story/identity is linked to willpower) will focus on their agency - what is technically called the "Pygmalion effect," which I prefer to call the "naruto effect." Of course, as as leftist scholar myself, I think the Pygmalion effect is overblown and is closer to psychology's "fundamental attribution error," according to which we are always the main cause of our successes and failures. I do believe the right's tendency to focus on the present, while often granting surprising insights in terms of immediate potential, makes it incapable of articulating nuanced views of the world that take into accounts long-term mechanics. One might wonder if the blindness isn't deliberate: for some people, delving into determinism might yield some troubling truths about their identity...

Anyway, the remarkable thing about the current conflict is that it requires people on the "right" not just to ignore the deterministic factors of the past (the blatant injustice Palestinians have been the victims of for over 70 years), but also the slaughter happening right now.
It requires such mental gymnastics that it drives any lucid person crazy, because it becomes impossible to believe that hawks can actually manage to focus in good faith on a specific moment in time to the exclusion of both the more distant past and present. It's why people here keep bringing everything back to Hamas: it's the only way the cognitive dissonance can function. The moment you start broadening your perspective it becomes impossible to ignore Israeli responsibilities.

A simpler way to put it is that denying an ongoing crime against humanity requires a lot of effort, and that it drives one crazy to see people putting in that effort. The disconnect with reality, the cognitive dissonance, are so glaring that communication becomes pointless, since "one side" can only maintain its positions by actively denying reality.

And since I've hyper-intellectualised all this shit, might as well add the final element, which is that this is both the blessing and the curse of humanity. The ability to exercise symbolic thought, displacement as it is called today, is at the same time what allows humans to exercise power on the material world and also to ignore it when reality becomes inconvenient. 
By that I mean that if a State is literally killing thousands of children because of a campaign of intensive bombing, we can always find ways to rationalize it.

 

45 minutes ago, Relic said:

There is literally nothing to be gained by continuing this conversation here, at this point. We all know where we stand, and no one is going to convince anyone of anything. It might be a bit infuriating (for me its just sad, really), but the best thing to do is to focus energy and resources elsewhere, where they might make a difference. 

Had i learned that lesson 20 years ago i would have saved myself a ton of angst during the invasion of Iraq. 20 years later, zero lessons learned it seems.

I'm also tempted to give up tbh.
Anyway, on the plus side of things, Israel can't keep this shit up for too long. Some boarders here might develop their thoughts in a kind of ahistorical vacuum, but the world at large does not. Israel will certainly continue brutalizing Palestinians, but there are limits to what it will be able to do - the US is playing its role. Though even limiting the civilian casualties to a few percents of the overall population will still represent a revolting demonstration of State terrorism, and one that doesn't bode well for the near future, given the broader context...

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

5 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Supposedly more children have died in these weeks of fighting than in all conflicts around the globe per year since 2019.

Don't worry! It's all okay because they were near lawful military targets! Plus, it's totally cool for democratic nations to unload their military might on children when Hamas hides behind them.  

[Zorral]

Israeli friend writes:

Saturday night I went to a protest in support of hostage families' cry for cease-fire.  We were greeted by a man wrapped in an Israeli flag, screaming into a microphone, "Bibi is Hamas!  Bibi is Hamas!"  This is what I wake up screaming in my head every day.

[fionwe1987]

7 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It requires such mental gymnastics that it drives any lucid person crazy, because it becomes impossible to believe that hawks can actually manage to focus in good faith on a specific moment in time to the exclusion of both the more distant past and present. It's why people here keep bringing everything back to Hamas: it's the only way the cognitive dissonance can function. The moment you start broadening your perspective it becomes impossible to ignore Israeli responsibilities.

This is a good summary of what's been happening on this board. 

And you're right. It drives me bonkers to see people actively ignore history, context and current day evidence to continue hardening their hearts and legitimizing civilian death. 

 

[Zorral]

15 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It requires such mental gymnastics that it drives any lucid person crazy,

After my early early 20's Nietzche no longer seemed to speak to me in any meaningful manner.  But lately only his words explain what is going on, in my country and all over the world.

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

[Heartofice]

31 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I've also noticed a kind of temporal axis, whereby "right-wing" observers (they're generally on the right generally speaking, though for some it will depend on the issue) tend to ignore the past to focus on what has just happened or is happening, whereas "left-wing" observers will take a much broader historical perspective.

Not my experience. I could easily say the reverse, with many left wing commentators actively ignoring much of the history of the area and really only concentrating on recent history. Either way, I'll be generous and say that almost everyone is extremely selective in their history when it comes to Israel. There are too many events over time to create a neat little narrative. 

I'd also be curious as to whether that article you posted even mentions the religious aspect of any of this? What are the Arab nations thoughts to having a jewish state on their borders? Is that not some sort of motivating factor?

[Zorral]

OPINION
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Please, Israel, Don’t Get Lost in Hamas’s Tunnels

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/opinion/israel-hamas-ceasefire.html

"... Chief among the reasons, Menon explained, was that any military response would have quickly obscured just how outrageous and terrible the raid on Indian civilians and tourists was; ..."

Quote

 

.... I am watching the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza today and thinking about one of the world leaders I’ve most admired: Manmohan Singh. He was India’s prime minister in late November 2008, when 10 Pakistani jihadist militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, widely believed to be linked to Pakistan’s military intelligence, infiltrated India and killed more than 160 people in Mumbai, including 61 people at two luxury hotels. What was Singh’s military response to India’s Sept. 11?

He did nothing.

Singh never retaliated militarily against the nation of Pakistan or Lashkar camps in Pakistan. It was a remarkable act of restraint. What was the logic? In his book “Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy,” India’s foreign minister at the time, Shivshankar Menon, explained why, making these key points:

“I myself pressed at that time for immediate visible retaliation” against the jihadist bases or against Pakistani military intelligence, “which was clearly complicit,” Menon wrote. “To have done so would have been emotionally satisfying and gone some way toward erasing the shame of the incompetence that India’s police and security agencies displayed.”

He continued, “But on sober reflection and in hindsight, I now believe that the decision not to retaliate militarily and to concentrate on diplomatic, covert and other means was the right one for that time and place.”

Chief among the reasons, Menon explained, was that any military response would have quickly obscured just how outrageous and terrible the raid on Indian civilians and tourists was; “the fact of a terrorist attack from Pakistan on India with official involvement on the Pakistan side” would have been lost. Once India retaliated, the world would immediately have had what Menon called a “ho-hum reaction.” Just another Pakistani-Indian dust-up — nothing unusual here.

Moreover, Menon wrote, “an Indian attack on Pakistan would have united Pakistan behind the Pakistan Army, which was in increasing domestic disrepute,” and “an attack on Pakistan would also have weakened the civilian government in Pakistan, which had just been elected to power and which sought a much better relationship with India than the Pakistan Army was willing to consider.” He continued, “A war scare, and maybe even a war itself, was exactly what the Pakistan Army wanted to buttress its internal position.”

In addition, he wrote, “a war, even a successful war, would have imposed costs and set back the progress of the Indian economy just when the world economy in November 2008 was in an unprecedented financial crisis.”

In conclusion, said Menon, “by not attacking Pakistan, India was free to pursue all legal and covert means to achieve its goals of bringing the perpetrators to justice, uniting the international community to force consequences on Pakistan for its behavior and to strengthen the likelihood that such an attack would not take place again.” ....

 

 

[Ran]

51 minutes ago, Crixus said:

he goes so far as to say Israel should consider taking in women and children whilst the operation happens. 

Said the same very early on when Israel first announced a blockade, more or less. I think it'd be great. Whether Hamas would let women and children go, I am dubious, but still, the offer should be made by Israel. It would make the rest of the conflict easier.

45 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

The moment you start broadening your perspective it becomes impossible to ignore Israeli responsibilities.

Feel free to see how I've couched the current position of Hamas as being directly related to well over a decade of policy from Netanyahu, how Hamas acting now is directly related to normalization efforts with Saudi Arabia that have taken decades to come to fruition, etc. I'm very aware of the historical context and the shitty deals and the backstabbing and everything else.

It really takes no gymnastics. Contrarywise, the gymnastics to me seems from the other side entirely, which seems to believe that Hamas will go away with minimal effort and minimal collateral damage or, vice versa, they are in fact an integral part of the future of a Palestinian state. The latter is at least plausible, if by "Palestinian state" we mean "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab".  Perhaps that is the part being thought and not said, I don't know.

1 hour ago, SuperHans said:

Says the guy who runs a messageboard for fans of dragon books. What makes you any more of an expert than the twitch guy?

Nothing. But this is a discussion forum where we agree to discuss. When I link to things I find interesting, they are invariably serious reportage or they are remarks from experts and people who have directly dealt with these matters. I don't go around linking whatever comes blathering out of the mouths of XQC, Ethan Klein, or Wubby, and I don't cite other members of the forum as people who are experts. 

We're all of non-experts reaching around in the dark for meaning amidst tragedy. But we don't need to import more non-experts into the conversation. I mean, if Hasan wants to sign up for the board and partake in the conversation, he's welcome to do so, but otherwise, I genuinely think there's no value in his opinion because he's not part of our conversation and he's also not an expert.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Ran

[fionwe1987]

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Not my experience. I could easily say the reverse, with many left wing commentators actively ignoring much of the history of the area and really only concentrating on recent history.

Define recent, please. 

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Either way, I'll be generous and say that almost everyone is extremely selective in their history when it comes to Israel. There are too many events over time to create a neat little narrative. 

Except one side here does think there's a neat history that allows them to view today's conflict in isolation, and has repeatedly dismissed past events as irrelevant. 

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I'd also be curious as to whether that article you posted even mentions the religious aspect of any of this? What are the Arab nations thoughts to having a jewish state on their borders? Is that not some sort of motivating factor?

I don't have access to the article, but I can tell you now that religious motivation is susceptible to secular pressures, and always has been. You will note that the religious aspect didn't stop Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, from coming to the brink of normalizing relations with Israel. 

Edited October 30, 2023 by fionwe1987

[Tywin et al.]

37 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It requires such mental gymnastics that it drives any lucid person crazy, because it becomes impossible to believe that hawks can actually manage to focus in good faith on a specific moment in time to the exclusion of both the more distant past and present. It's why people here keep bringing everything back to Hamas: it's the only way the cognitive dissonance can function. The moment you start broadening your perspective it becomes impossible to ignore Israeli responsibilities.

No, the mental gymnastics are ignoring that Hamas started this war, they did so by firing thousands of rockets at another state while sending thousands of people to invade it. This plan was in the works for a long time. Once they successfully invaded they murdered well over a thousand innocent civilians, it didn't matter if they were elderly, women or children, took hundreds of hostages then used the people they're suppose to govern as human shields for defense. If Hamas didn't do all of the above no one would be dead. But they did and the lion's share of the blame is on them. Plus they're actively hoarding months worth of food, water and gas while not letting people flee areas that are about to be bombed because they want higher death tolls for propaganda purposes. 

JFC, that's the mental gymnastics man, to downplay what they've done.

29 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

It drives me bonkers to see people actively ignore history

And it drives me bonkers how selective people want to be about the history of this conflict. 

[JoannaL]

5 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

This is a good summary of what's been happening on this board. 

And you're right. It drives me bonkers to see people actively ignore history, context and current day evidence to continue hardening their hearts and legitimizing civilian death. 

 

Context is a very complicated concept.

It is terrible that innocent people die. but  I do not understand the strong distinction between Hamas and civilians on this board.It sometimes sounds as if they are not connected.

I am German. My mother was three year old when the allied forced bombed Hamburg again and again. In one night (28.7. 1943) more than 30.000 people - most of them civilians- died. My mother was three - and so definitly no Nazi, when she had to run for shelter night after night with her mother, who was pregnant again and had always elected socialdemocrats before the dictatorship and was also no nazi.. My mother dreams of this bombing  all of her life , still today. Of the bombs , of the screams, of the fire.

But still even if this was very bad, was it wrong to fight the Nazis? No obviously not, they had to be removed and the Germans themselves were not strong enough to do it, so they had to be defeated in war. and in war civilians die. Today we teach our children in school and I do believe this to be right:

The people are responsible for their government. the Germans were responsible for the nazis and their deeds.

in the same way the people of Gaza are responsible for the Hamas. And if they are not strong enough to remove them themselves, someone else must do it.

 

Also about the nonsensical comparisons a while back:

the Nazis were antisemitc fascists:  they had a dictatorship and and wanted to kill jews out of racist reasons.

The Israeli have a democray and do not want to kill anyone ( but some very ugly part of their society do do some land grab)

Gaza is dictatorial ruled, and the Hamas states openly that it wants to kill all Jews:

so obviously if you really want to call someone Nazi, its the Hamas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

The Allied forces got away with a lot of war crimes, including civilian bombings that were fueled by a lot of vengeance for the Battle of Britain. This is public knowledge. It's right to fight Nazis, but as the saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right. 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Matrim Fox Cauthon