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I hear you on the hostages, that makes sense as part of any ceasefire. > but the alternative of simply throwing open the border between Gaza and Israel is also

I hear you on the hostages, that makes sense as part of any ceasefire. > but the alternative of simply throwing open the border between Gaza and Israel is also plainly unacceptable. I don't know that anyone is asking for that, or whether or not it is good, but, assuming the letter did suggest that, does that merit the kind of treatment the signatories received? Like, it might be a stupid and totally unreasonable ask (again, IDK enough about this), but I don't see how asking it could be that morally condemnable. > Excusing the atrocities of October 7 makes the situation much worse, instead of better. Did the letter do that? I didn't read the full text, just what was excerpted in this blog post. There are many understatements in your post regarding the treatment of the Palestinians lol Do you feel the same about all the statements on the attacks we have seen from corporations, even recently, that are totally silent on the death count and maltreatment of Palestinian civilians here? Because those statements absolutely exude the attitude that Palestinian innocents do not count or exist at all, and that the side those statements are on is totally innocent, which is basically the exact attitude for which a lot of the pro-Palestinian statements are being criticized.

jfengel 3y ago
In talking about "throwing open the border" I'm talking about the longstanding conflict between the left and Israel. Israel is consistently accused of "apartheid", which I feel is unjust. They do indeed have a wall between them and Gaza -- a wall that usually prevents attacks like the one on October 7th. That is not at all comparable to the situation in South Africa, and I think that the false equivalence demeans both situations. I think that statements condemning the October 7th attacks are perfectly reasonable in excluding references to the Palestinians. That was not an act of warfare. It had no chance of accomplishing any political goal. It was a sadistic atrocity, in a way that its high body count alone obscures. This situation is not well served just by totting up the numbers of corpses. That accounting is made murkier by the way Hamas uses its citizens as human shields. Hamas has been using civilian apartment buildings for years -- long before October 7 -- to attack Israel. Israel issues warnings before the buildings are attacked, and Hamas has been accused of forcing the residents to stay. That accusation sounds shocking, but given the events of October 7 (which went far beyond mere massacre of innocents to include rape, torture, and mutilation), it's unfortunately easy to believe. As I said before, I do think that it was right and good to tell Israel to stop its settlements in the West Bank. They should have implemented the Oslo Accords long ago. Crimes committed by settlers should be laid at the feet of the Likud government. But note that those are on the West Bank, not Gaza. Gaza had been turned over to the Palestinians in 2009. Hamas has run it since they won the election -- and refused to hold any more elections. This wasn't about mistreatment, and it's perfectly reasonable for corporate statements to link Israel's crimes in the West Bank to the situation in Gaza. That's why I think that this letter is such a mistake. The situation is complex and ugly, and it's not well served by a shallow, one-sided understanding. Omitting a return of the hostages is merely missing something that "makes sense". It demonstrates a failure to recognize how thoroughly Palestinian propaganda has distorted the genuine problems. Much of what they think they know "regarding the treatment of the Palestinians" is a lie -- and I say that having reiterated that I'm well aware that there are some genuine truths buried among the lies.
- catlover76 3y ago
  I don't think you're as much of a "bleeding heart" as you claim (which is fine--you don't have to be, and we'd have a problem in fact if everyone was some over-compassionate woke lefty) if you can't feel that the kind of conditions placed on Gaza merit more moral opprobrium and that "that statements condemning the October 7th attacks are perfectly reasonable in excluding references to the Palestinians". Especially since what I am talking about are statements made weeks after, when the Palestinian death toll climbed into the thousands, any sort of sentiment expressing concern for Palestinian life is routinely condemned as "pro-Hamas", and any sort of criticism of Israel's actions is attacked as "anti-semitic", as if being the victim of an atrocity confers upon a country a blank check to inflict the same on other civilians. You're calling a lot "Palestinian propaganda", but really, you seem to just be parroting the opposite type of propaganda, in which western media is suffused. And I'm not too much of a partisan of this conflict, IMO; I don't have too strong of an opinion as to whether the situation is "apartheid" or whether Israel's current actions amount to "genocide". I don't disagree with blaming Hamas for this latest outbreak of war. I don't really care that much about Palestinian statehood (no ethnic group or nation has a right to any land or country, in my view). In general, I don't begrudge Israel the right to take military action to reclaim their hostages and strike a blow against Hamas. But I am deeply disturbed by how aggressively most of the West has come to agree that Palestinian civilians and innocents fail to matter. One would hope that the same people who support #BlackLivesMatter would see what's happening now and call it out, but that seems not to be the case; this is even more egregious than waving thin blue line flags, and otherwise liberal people are all in on it.
  - jfengel 3y ago
    The problem, I think, is that the things I'm accusing Hamas of are so horrific that they sound like the sort of lies somebody would make up. Surely they don't shoot people trying to leave buildings that Israel has said they're going to bomb just so that they could use it for propaganda. And even if I provided you video evidence of it, the source of that is always going to be the IDF, so it's "propaganda" regardless of its authenticity. And yet it's true, so we've in a bind here. You don't want to believe it; I sure as hell don't want to believe it. But if you take a second to think about what the consequences would be, you'd find that they're consistent what we've seen: an awful lot of civilians dead, but not nearly what you'd expect from a campaign of genocide. It's not about Israel inflicting "the same" on other civilians. It's about the fact that Hamas is using those civilians as human shields. If the Palestinians turned over the Hamas leadership, and insisted that they not pursue their attacks from inside hospitals and residences, then the Israeli attack would stop instantly. Yes, I hate the way this makes my progressive credentials look weak. But this is the truth, as best I can tell it, and I'm not going to equivocate with it when the source of conflicting assertions is the same people who raped and tortured people who could not possibly have anything to do with their situation.

jfengel 3y ago

In talking about "throwing open the border" I'm talking about the longstanding conflict between the left and Israel. Israel is consistently accused of "apartheid", which I feel is unjust. They do indeed have a wall between them and Gaza -- a wall that usually prevents attacks like the one on October 7th. That is not at all comparable to the situation in South Africa, and I think that the false equivalence demeans both situations. I think that statements condemning the October 7th attacks are perfectly reasonable in excluding references to the Palestinians. That was not an act of warfare. It had no chance of accomplishing any political goal. It was a sadistic atrocity, in a way that its high body count alone obscures. This situation is not well served just by totting up the numbers of corpses. That accounting is made murkier by the way Hamas uses its citizens as human shields. Hamas has been using civilian apartment buildings for years -- long before October 7 -- to attack Israel. Israel issues warnings before the buildings are attacked, and Hamas has been accused of forcing the residents to stay. That accusation sounds shocking, but given the events of October 7 (which went far beyond mere massacre of innocents to include rape, torture, and mutilation), it's unfortunately easy to believe. As I said before, I do think that it was right and good to tell Israel to stop its settlements in the West Bank. They should have implemented the Oslo Accords long ago. Crimes committed by settlers should be laid at the feet of the Likud government. But note that those are on the West Bank, not Gaza. Gaza had been turned over to the Palestinians in 2009. Hamas has run it since they won the election -- and refused to hold any more elections. This wasn't about mistreatment, and it's perfectly reasonable for corporate statements to link Israel's crimes in the West Bank to the situation in Gaza. That's why I think that this letter is such a mistake. The situation is complex and ugly, and it's not well served by a shallow, one-sided understanding. Omitting a return of the hostages is merely missing something that "makes sense". It demonstrates a failure to recognize how thoroughly Palestinian propaganda has distorted the genuine problems. Much of what they think they know "regarding the treatment of the Palestinians" is a lie -- and I say that having reiterated that I'm well aware that there are some genuine truths buried among the lies.

catlover76 3y ago
I don't think you're as much of a "bleeding heart" as you claim (which is fine--you don't have to be, and we'd have a problem in fact if everyone was some over-compassionate woke lefty) if you can't feel that the kind of conditions placed on Gaza merit more moral opprobrium and that "that statements condemning the October 7th attacks are perfectly reasonable in excluding references to the Palestinians". Especially since what I am talking about are statements made weeks after, when the Palestinian death toll climbed into the thousands, any sort of sentiment expressing concern for Palestinian life is routinely condemned as "pro-Hamas", and any sort of criticism of Israel's actions is attacked as "anti-semitic", as if being the victim of an atrocity confers upon a country a blank check to inflict the same on other civilians. You're calling a lot "Palestinian propaganda", but really, you seem to just be parroting the opposite type of propaganda, in which western media is suffused. And I'm not too much of a partisan of this conflict, IMO; I don't have too strong of an opinion as to whether the situation is "apartheid" or whether Israel's current actions amount to "genocide". I don't disagree with blaming Hamas for this latest outbreak of war. I don't really care that much about Palestinian statehood (no ethnic group or nation has a right to any land or country, in my view). In general, I don't begrudge Israel the right to take military action to reclaim their hostages and strike a blow against Hamas. But I am deeply disturbed by how aggressively most of the West has come to agree that Palestinian civilians and innocents fail to matter. One would hope that the same people who support #BlackLivesMatter would see what's happening now and call it out, but that seems not to be the case; this is even more egregious than waving thin blue line flags, and otherwise liberal people are all in on it.
- jfengel 3y ago
  The problem, I think, is that the things I'm accusing Hamas of are so horrific that they sound like the sort of lies somebody would make up. Surely they don't shoot people trying to leave buildings that Israel has said they're going to bomb just so that they could use it for propaganda. And even if I provided you video evidence of it, the source of that is always going to be the IDF, so it's "propaganda" regardless of its authenticity. And yet it's true, so we've in a bind here. You don't want to believe it; I sure as hell don't want to believe it. But if you take a second to think about what the consequences would be, you'd find that they're consistent what we've seen: an awful lot of civilians dead, but not nearly what you'd expect from a campaign of genocide. It's not about Israel inflicting "the same" on other civilians. It's about the fact that Hamas is using those civilians as human shields. If the Palestinians turned over the Hamas leadership, and insisted that they not pursue their attacks from inside hospitals and residences, then the Israeli attack would stop instantly. Yes, I hate the way this makes my progressive credentials look weak. But this is the truth, as best I can tell it, and I'm not going to equivocate with it when the source of conflicting assertions is the same people who raped and tortured people who could not possibly have anything to do with their situation.