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My scale isn't ISIL or Al-Qaeda. My scale is the US, the UK, Australia, France etc. The scale of the western world.

by YZF 1y ago

acdha 1y ago
Exactly. It’s fair to criticize Israel for civilian casualties just like all of those countries have been criticized for failing to live up to their stated standards. Countries like Russia or Iran are recognized as being worse but don’t get criticized for being hypocritical because nobody expected them to be good.
- throwaway3060 1y ago
  Countries like Russia (and probably Iran) still claim to be paragons of human rights in diplomatic settings - just that most are used to ignoring them because of the immense scale and sheer audacity of their hypocrisy.
- ath3nd 1y ago
  > Exactly. It’s fair to criticize Israel for civilian casualties just like all of those countries have been criticized for failing to live up to their stated standards. Russia doesn't target civilian population to the extent Israel does. There is a reason only Israel is charged with genocide, and not Russia. Don't get me wrong, both the countries' governments are run by bunch of homicidal dictators, but only Isreal systematically does enough war crimes and human rights violations to fit the criteria of genocide.
  - throwaway3060 1y ago
    This is entirely incorrect. Putin's arrest warrant is for the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children. The legal definition of genocide explicitly calls out such a situation as an example. There are other reasons why your comparison is flawed.
    - ath3nd 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - tomhow 1y ago
        > What are you even talking about, bot account? > instead of just saying random stuff like a coward. You can't comment like this on HN, no matter what you're replying to. You've posted many comments in this thread that are inflammatory and risk breaking the guidelines. On a topic like this one, this guideline is especially important: Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. You've been asked before to make an effort to observe the guidelines. Please remind yourself of them and keep them in mind when commenting here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
bluehex 1y ago
> Iran and Hamas firing missiles and rockets into population centers is a war crime too. So is their embedding and use of civilians. The entire strategy of Israel's opponents in the middle east is to engage in war crimes. Where do we place Israel on that scale? I feel like you're moving the target now. Those are your words above. But yes, if your scale is that of the western world then harsh criticism of Israel's war crimes should be expected and welcome. I don't mean to put words in your mouth, maybe you did mean something along those lines and I'm misinterpreting.
- YZF 1y ago
  It it absolutely fair to criticize Israel the same way that e.g Canada, the US, the UK, France etc. were criticized during their war on the Islamic State. Let's get some scale here. - Probably more than 160K killed in this war. Maybe half civilians. - Siege and constant bombardment/destruction of cities like Mosul. - Millions of civilians displaced. - Many war crimes by western powers. This was in response to what? A few westerners beheaded? Terrorist attacks killing a few dozen people? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_Islamic_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_Islamic_State Can you really say honestly that the amount of criticism Israel is attracting due to its war in Gaza and the circumstances are comparable? This might just be me but I don't recall huge rallies against the war. I don't recall much negative media coverage. I don't recall anyone held accountable for war crimes. I don't recall the ICC being involved. Yes, the US bombings of random weddings in Afghanistan with Predator drones and air to surface missiles, or bombing hospitals has occasionally drawn some weak protest. Nothing at the scale of the anti-Israeli sentiment. This isn't what-about-ism. It's not ok to bomb a wedding and it's not ok to fire into a crowd of people trying to get food. But there is no comparison of the sentiment and focus.
  - acdha 1y ago
    You can’t talk about ISIS in isolation from the U.S. invasion of Iraq which gave Zarqawi the ability to grow so much. That had enormous protests, tons of criticism for the massive civilian death toll, and plenty of negative media coverage. By the time the Islamic system was at its height, most of the reaction was muted in the backdrop of Syria’s civil war and the U.S. failure in Iraq leaving few people jumping to commit more troops into unfriendly territory. In contrast, Israel controls Gaza and has no willingness to give up that control and ownership follows that.

My scale isn't ISIL or Al-Qaeda. My scale is the US, the UK, Australia, France etc. The scale of the western world.

by YZF 1y ago

My scale isn't ISIL or Al-Qaeda. My scale is the US, the UK, Australia, France etc. The scale of the western world.

Exactly. It’s fair to criticize Israel for civilian casualties just like all of those countries have been criticized for failing to live up to their stated standards. Countries like Russia or Iran are recognized as being worse but don’t get criticized for being hypocritical because nobody expected them to be good.

throwaway3060 1y ago
Countries like Russia (and probably Iran) still claim to be paragons of human rights in diplomatic settings - just that most are used to ignoring them because of the immense scale and sheer audacity of their hypocrisy.
ath3nd 1y ago
> Exactly. It’s fair to criticize Israel for civilian casualties just like all of those countries have been criticized for failing to live up to their stated standards. Russia doesn't target civilian population to the extent Israel does. There is a reason only Israel is charged with genocide, and not Russia. Don't get me wrong, both the countries' governments are run by bunch of homicidal dictators, but only Isreal systematically does enough war crimes and human rights violations to fit the criteria of genocide.
- throwaway3060 1y ago
  This is entirely incorrect. Putin's arrest warrant is for the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children. The legal definition of genocide explicitly calls out such a situation as an example. There are other reasons why your comparison is flawed.
  - ath3nd 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - tomhow 1y ago
      > What are you even talking about, bot account? > instead of just saying random stuff like a coward. You can't comment like this on HN, no matter what you're replying to. You've posted many comments in this thread that are inflammatory and risk breaking the guidelines. On a topic like this one, this guideline is especially important: Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. You've been asked before to make an effort to observe the guidelines. Please remind yourself of them and keep them in mind when commenting here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

bluehex 1y ago

> Iran and Hamas firing missiles and rockets into population centers is a war crime too. So is their embedding and use of civilians. The entire strategy of Israel's opponents in the middle east is to engage in war crimes. Where do we place Israel on that scale? I feel like you're moving the target now. Those are your words above. But yes, if your scale is that of the western world then harsh criticism of Israel's war crimes should be expected and welcome. I don't mean to put words in your mouth, maybe you did mean something along those lines and I'm misinterpreting.

YZF 1y ago
It it absolutely fair to criticize Israel the same way that e.g Canada, the US, the UK, France etc. were criticized during their war on the Islamic State. Let's get some scale here. - Probably more than 160K killed in this war. Maybe half civilians. - Siege and constant bombardment/destruction of cities like Mosul. - Millions of civilians displaced. - Many war crimes by western powers. This was in response to what? A few westerners beheaded? Terrorist attacks killing a few dozen people? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_Islamic_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_Islamic_State Can you really say honestly that the amount of criticism Israel is attracting due to its war in Gaza and the circumstances are comparable? This might just be me but I don't recall huge rallies against the war. I don't recall much negative media coverage. I don't recall anyone held accountable for war crimes. I don't recall the ICC being involved. Yes, the US bombings of random weddings in Afghanistan with Predator drones and air to surface missiles, or bombing hospitals has occasionally drawn some weak protest. Nothing at the scale of the anti-Israeli sentiment. This isn't what-about-ism. It's not ok to bomb a wedding and it's not ok to fire into a crowd of people trying to get food. But there is no comparison of the sentiment and focus.
- acdha 1y ago
  You can’t talk about ISIS in isolation from the U.S. invasion of Iraq which gave Zarqawi the ability to grow so much. That had enormous protests, tons of criticism for the massive civilian death toll, and plenty of negative media coverage. By the time the Islamic system was at its height, most of the reaction was muted in the backdrop of Syria’s civil war and the U.S. failure in Iraq leaving few people jumping to commit more troops into unfriendly territory. In contrast, Israel controls Gaza and has no willingness to give up that control and ownership follows that.