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This is a longer conversation not fit for HN. The very quick response is 10/7 was a brutal massacre of civilians - the goal being to torture, rape, and kill reg
by homefree 3y ago
This is a longer conversation not fit for HN. The very quick response is 10/7 was a brutal massacre of civilians - the goal being to torture, rape, and kill regular people including and especially women and children (of which many are still held hostage).
This is going to have a military response independent of any country (imagine Mexico doing this across the border to a town in Texas).
Civilians will die in war despite best efforts, but war is sometimes necessary and justified, especially when dealing with ideas of jihad not compatible with western society.
The response celebrating 10/7 in a lot of the western progressive circles on 10/8 was before Israel had even organized a response.
The history here is complicated, and people can have different views - but whatever your views there, this kind of intentional targeting of civilians is not justifiable.
There’s a distinction between civilians killed in war despite best efforts to avoid non-combatant deaths and specifically targeting civilians to torture and kill. The moral confusion comes from not understanding that or drawing a false equivalence.
Hamas also understands Israel has a higher moral standard and does not want to kill civilians - it’s why they use hospitals and schools as bases and to store arms.
If Hamas laid down their arms there would be peace, if Israel did the same we saw on 10/7 what would happen. Some ideas require total military defeat. It was necessary in WWII and we now live in peace with those countries
The focus on the response when the aggressors have not even released all of the hostages is a clear example of this confusion too.
- skulk 3y agoThe phrase "best-efforts to avoid non-combatant deaths" is _extremely_ load-bearing in your post. Israel is locked into a multigenerational existential conflict with people who utterly hate their guts for just existing. Similar feelings have developed on their side. Claiming that Israel cares about not killing Palestinian civilians is utterly laughable, especially given the news.
- homefree 3y agoI happen to believe it’s true that a best effort is made to minimize civilian death (you can read about the lengths Israel goes to in order to avoid civilian casualties, more than any other country, and to such an extent that Hamas takes advantage of these tactics), but it’s also not as load bearing as you suggest. There are rules of engagement and tradeoffs in war (Eye In The Sky is a decent film that focuses on this). There’s still a major distinction between intentionally targeting civilians for torture and death and civilians killed as collateral damage while persuing an enemy combatant.
- skulk 3y agoI'm not going to be able to convince you that what Israel is doing post 10/7 is wrong (nor can I even convince myself entirely). But what I do know is (was) wrong was the attempt to found an ethnostate in the center of a political entity that religiously hates your people. That was monumentally stupid. But now I'm just whining.
- ufo 3y agoI find the statements about best efforts hard to believe, considering that we're talking about the most far-right government Israel ever had, with several cabinet members making statements in favor of removing all Palestinians from the Gaza strip and the left bank, and a prime minister that knows he'll lose his job the moment he stops the hostilities. Today we're faced with the logical impossibility of Israel ordering an "evacuation" from Rafah, with nowhere for those people to go to.
- int_19h 3y agoThere's no amount of sophistry that can handwave away the fact that Israel is knowingly killing dozens of civilians for every Hamas member that they kill. And no, this is not accidental. They're explicitly okay with it: https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...
- ignoramous 3y agoThe ones calling others morally confused are so utterly sure that they are indeed the ones confusing others.
- jasonm23 3y agoThis is clear astroturf and you should be ashamed of your bald faced lies in these posts.
- homefree 3y agoIt’s not astroturf and I’m not ashamed. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean their position isn’t genuinely held.
- raxxorraxor 3y agoIsrael has a problem with domestic extremism, but that doesn't invalidate the points that were made. But they do the same way the US cares more about Palestinians than the Houthis do. Of course such feelings are inhibited because of attacks, so I don't know which expectations you have here.