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Whatever criticism Israel may or may not deserve over its current bombing campaign, you aren't going to convince anyone if you misuse phrases like "murdered in

Whatever criticism Israel may or may not deserve over its current bombing campaign, you aren't going to convince anyone if you misuse phrases like "murdered in cold blood". That's just not what those words mean.

geofft 5y ago
Can you explain why I am misusing the phrase? I believe it to be objectively accurate. Again, that phrasing might make people uncomfortable. as I wrote above. I understand that, and I understand why people desire to censor it. But I don't believe it's incorrect, which is another thing entitely.
- woodpanel 5y ago
  You can have your beliefs, but that doesn't make them facts. Meanwhile a cleptocratic regime is firing missiles at civlians using as launching pads hospitals, kindergartens or office buildings housing international journalists.
  - modo_mario 5y ago
    >office buildings housing international journalists. Weird how those journalist agencies themselves missed that. What's the slow colonisation with settlements about? Liberation of land controlled by evil terrorists? Also as far as Israel is concerned there is no recognised regime or other such government there. It's apparently a stateless area with stateless people to be slowly ethnically cleansed.
    - 34679 5y ago
      https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-57136883 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-57136883 "Israeli PM Netanyahu defends Gaza press building bombing Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that destroying the Jala high-rise block in Gaza on Saturday was justified."
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that destroying the Jala high-rise block in Gaza on Saturday was justified There’s a pretty big difference between a politician (even one less flagrantly corrupt than Netanyahu) making a claim about their conduct of war and that claim being true.
        34679 5y ago
        I agree. I unsuccessfully tried finding an article I read a couple days ago that contained quotes from the head of the BBC office declaring that Hamas had no presence in the building. They said they actively check to the best of their ability because Israel is known to bomb media buildings and blame it on Hamas' presence. They also stated Israel has provided no proof of its claims.
- three14 5y ago
  I'd like to think I would have resisted responding, but I see another response that doesn't answer your question, so, oh well- The dictionary seems to use "murder" for premeditated killing. Even if you think Israelis are the devil incarnate, killing children doesn't serve their interests. You have to go pretty far into conspiracy territory to believe they secretly want those children to die, and then turn around and explain to everyone how they try to prevent those kids from dying. It certainly serves Hamas's interests more than it serves Israeli interests. Google's dictionary returns "without emotion or pity; deliberately cruel or callous" for cold-blooded. See above. Any reasonable pro- or anti-Israel position would concede that Israelis would be happier without civilian casualties.
  - toyg 5y ago
    > You have to go pretty far into conspiracy territory to believe they secretly want those children to die Not really: it's well-reported that Israeli policy reasons about Arabs primarily in demographic terms. A stated Israeli priority is to keep low the number of Arabs in its territory. It's not even a secret. You might find this so abhorrent and morally indefensible to be unlikely, but really it's just another day in the Middle East.
    - three14 5y ago
      You are arguing that bombs killing less than 0.02% of Palestinian children is going to solve Israel's demographic problem and Israel would like to do that despite all the abuse they will receive from the rest of the world for doing so? Like, fine, assume absolute evil, why not, but evil and stupid simultaneously? Hence "conspiracy territory".
      - toyg 5y ago
        > You are arguing that bombs killing less than 0.02% of Palestinian children is going to solve Israel's demographic problem No I'm not, I'm just pointing out that this sort of attitude is obviously a natural result of their stated intent. > evil and stupid simultaneously? Stupid is a given, considering Occam. Asymmetrical warfare in general has been "propaganda-stupid" ever since Jewish tradition popularized David and Goliath. Yet armies still routinely engage in it, because propaganda is only one dimension of a conflict. Being stupid, however, doesn't exclude being anything else.
sofixa 5y ago
What do you call it when a military air force with enormous reconnaissance capabilities bombs civilian targets and civilians, including children, die?
- three14 5y ago
  I don't understand your argument. You want to point out that this is terrible, and in an ideal world, no one should be bombing anyone? Of course! That doesn't mean you should say, e.g. that Israelis are cannibals just because cannibalism is bad.
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    How is it not cold blooded murder then? The bombing is a killing. It is deliberate. It is done with ample preparation time and not under fire. You said it was misuse of the term. What keeps it from being proper to not call it cold blooded The nations can do what they want special pleading is the only argument I can see against murder but it would be an inconsistent one. Fiven the sheer number of state acts called murder completely unchallenged as such. Since WWII at least "at war" isn't an excuse for murder. While they may have called retaliatory executions for partisans war it was never called anything but murder in WW2.
    - ehvatum 5y ago
      > While they may have called retaliatory executions for partisans war it was never called anything but murder in WW2. You’re completely unaware of the indiscriminate aerial bombing that typified WW2, or you’re entirely dishonest.
runarberg 5y ago
We like arguing in hypotheticals here on HN so lets bring a modified trolley problem into the discussion: This modified version has the trolley heading steady on course to the next station, there is nobody on the track and nothing will happen if you leave it alone. However you stand next to a lever, and if you pull the lever you will divert the trolley and it will hit 200 people (some are criminals but most aren’t). You have ample time to think it over. If the trolley passes, you still have the option to pull the lever and the next trolley will hit those 200 people. You know full well what happens if you pull the lever. You also know you will not be punished if you do. Say you are an observer in this modified version, and you observe me pulling the lever. 200 people are now unessisary dead because of my action. Do you consider me a cold blooded murderer?
- three14 5y ago
  This is not a good-faith simplification of the situation in Gaza.
  - runarberg 5y ago
    I know its not, that was sort of the point here. I made sure to qualify this with arguing in hypotheticals before coming up with the scenario. Starting this sub-thread with a debate about what makes a cold blooded murder is another way of taking the debate into arguing hypotheticals and is not a good-faith tactic. What I did here is simply taking the bait and continuing to the logical next step.

geofft 5y ago

Can you explain why I am misusing the phrase? I believe it to be objectively accurate. Again, that phrasing might make people uncomfortable. as I wrote above. I understand that, and I understand why people desire to censor it. But I don't believe it's incorrect, which is another thing entitely.

woodpanel 5y ago
You can have your beliefs, but that doesn't make them facts. Meanwhile a cleptocratic regime is firing missiles at civlians using as launching pads hospitals, kindergartens or office buildings housing international journalists.
- modo_mario 5y ago
  >office buildings housing international journalists. Weird how those journalist agencies themselves missed that. What's the slow colonisation with settlements about? Liberation of land controlled by evil terrorists? Also as far as Israel is concerned there is no recognised regime or other such government there. It's apparently a stateless area with stateless people to be slowly ethnically cleansed.
  - 34679 5y ago
    https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-57136883 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-57136883 "Israeli PM Netanyahu defends Gaza press building bombing Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that destroying the Jala high-rise block in Gaza on Saturday was justified."
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that destroying the Jala high-rise block in Gaza on Saturday was justified There’s a pretty big difference between a politician (even one less flagrantly corrupt than Netanyahu) making a claim about their conduct of war and that claim being true.
      - 34679 5y ago
        I agree. I unsuccessfully tried finding an article I read a couple days ago that contained quotes from the head of the BBC office declaring that Hamas had no presence in the building. They said they actively check to the best of their ability because Israel is known to bomb media buildings and blame it on Hamas' presence. They also stated Israel has provided no proof of its claims.
three14 5y ago
I'd like to think I would have resisted responding, but I see another response that doesn't answer your question, so, oh well- The dictionary seems to use "murder" for premeditated killing. Even if you think Israelis are the devil incarnate, killing children doesn't serve their interests. You have to go pretty far into conspiracy territory to believe they secretly want those children to die, and then turn around and explain to everyone how they try to prevent those kids from dying. It certainly serves Hamas's interests more than it serves Israeli interests. Google's dictionary returns "without emotion or pity; deliberately cruel or callous" for cold-blooded. See above. Any reasonable pro- or anti-Israel position would concede that Israelis would be happier without civilian casualties.
- toyg 5y ago
  > You have to go pretty far into conspiracy territory to believe they secretly want those children to die Not really: it's well-reported that Israeli policy reasons about Arabs primarily in demographic terms. A stated Israeli priority is to keep low the number of Arabs in its territory. It's not even a secret. You might find this so abhorrent and morally indefensible to be unlikely, but really it's just another day in the Middle East.
  - three14 5y ago
    You are arguing that bombs killing less than 0.02% of Palestinian children is going to solve Israel's demographic problem and Israel would like to do that despite all the abuse they will receive from the rest of the world for doing so? Like, fine, assume absolute evil, why not, but evil and stupid simultaneously? Hence "conspiracy territory".
    - toyg 5y ago
      > You are arguing that bombs killing less than 0.02% of Palestinian children is going to solve Israel's demographic problem No I'm not, I'm just pointing out that this sort of attitude is obviously a natural result of their stated intent. > evil and stupid simultaneously? Stupid is a given, considering Occam. Asymmetrical warfare in general has been "propaganda-stupid" ever since Jewish tradition popularized David and Goliath. Yet armies still routinely engage in it, because propaganda is only one dimension of a conflict. Being stupid, however, doesn't exclude being anything else.

sofixa 5y ago

What do you call it when a military air force with enormous reconnaissance capabilities bombs civilian targets and civilians, including children, die?

three14 5y ago
I don't understand your argument. You want to point out that this is terrible, and in an ideal world, no one should be bombing anyone? Of course! That doesn't mean you should say, e.g. that Israelis are cannibals just because cannibalism is bad.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  How is it not cold blooded murder then? The bombing is a killing. It is deliberate. It is done with ample preparation time and not under fire. You said it was misuse of the term. What keeps it from being proper to not call it cold blooded The nations can do what they want special pleading is the only argument I can see against murder but it would be an inconsistent one. Fiven the sheer number of state acts called murder completely unchallenged as such. Since WWII at least "at war" isn't an excuse for murder. While they may have called retaliatory executions for partisans war it was never called anything but murder in WW2.
  - ehvatum 5y ago
    > While they may have called retaliatory executions for partisans war it was never called anything but murder in WW2. You’re completely unaware of the indiscriminate aerial bombing that typified WW2, or you’re entirely dishonest.

runarberg 5y ago

We like arguing in hypotheticals here on HN so lets bring a modified trolley problem into the discussion: This modified version has the trolley heading steady on course to the next station, there is nobody on the track and nothing will happen if you leave it alone. However you stand next to a lever, and if you pull the lever you will divert the trolley and it will hit 200 people (some are criminals but most aren’t). You have ample time to think it over. If the trolley passes, you still have the option to pull the lever and the next trolley will hit those 200 people. You know full well what happens if you pull the lever. You also know you will not be punished if you do. Say you are an observer in this modified version, and you observe me pulling the lever. 200 people are now unessisary dead because of my action. Do you consider me a cold blooded murderer?

three14 5y ago
This is not a good-faith simplification of the situation in Gaza.
- runarberg 5y ago
  I know its not, that was sort of the point here. I made sure to qualify this with arguing in hypotheticals before coming up with the scenario. Starting this sub-thread with a debate about what makes a cold blooded murder is another way of taking the debate into arguing hypotheticals and is not a good-faith tactic. What I did here is simply taking the bait and continuing to the logical next step.