Innocent People in the Middle East, Victimized by Fascist Theocrats

[Subjective Effect]

Those comparisons with other conflicts are not relevant -they are not metrics or standards anyone is trying to stick to.

The rest of what you describe is why I've been opposed to this assault. I'm not defending the choice to attack the Strip, and I've said repeatedly (in this thread too) that I think there should be an immediate cease-fire.

It must be on both sides though and Hamas should surrender and return the hostages. Why is no one insisting on that? That would be the end of the conflict but the sick thing is "resistance" (actually terrorism) seems more important to the lefty loons than a ceasefire and peace.

As to cultural sites - the Palestinians don't care about anyone else's as demonstrated by past behaviour, so cry me a river.

[Starker]

These other conflicts are the only thing to put the devastation in perspective precisely because there really isn't anything quite that can compare to what's happening in Gaza.

Palestinians have cared to preserve other people's culture, including that of Christians and Romans. There are cemeteries where Jewish graves have been preserved and kept in good order. But in any case, the deliberate destruction of culture is a crime regardless of whether you think that the people as a whole "deserve it".

And not all of the cultural heritage destroyed in Gaza belongs exclusively to the Palestinians:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church...int_Porphyrius

The church was again used as refuge for hundreds of civilians during the 2023–24 Israel–Hamas war. In October 2023, it was the site of an airstrike by the Israeli Air Force, which hit two halls sheltering Gazan Palestinian Muslims and Christians, causing the collapse of at least one building, and killed between 16–18 civilians. The church was attacked again in July 2024.

Hamas should absolutely return the hostages. Taking of hostages is a war crime. But Hamas is a terrorist organisation. Taking hostages and committing other terrorist attacks is their MO. Israel, on the other hand, is held to higher standards because it is a state and moreover ostensibly still a democratic one. But maybe you are right and Israel shouldn't really be held to any high standards. Maybe we shouldn't think of Israel as we would of modern Western countries and should treat it more like Russia and Iran.

[Subjective Effect]

The reason we should think of Israel differently is because they are not in a conflict with a comparable opposite. Ones doesn't expect an MMA fighter to fight according to UFC rules if they are assaulted by 2 armed assailants who want to kill them and not just submit/knock them out a la in the Octagon.

The Palestinians have no respect for Jewish cultural heritage at all. They may not destroy absolutely everything but they will smash anything they don't like or want or even consider blasphemous.

And let us not forget this.

[demagogue]

A nuclear armed state with military spending 2.5 times the entire GDP of Palestinians vs. the 148th lowest GDP territory on the planet below Togo and New Caledonia aren't "comparable opposites" because the Palestinians are the unfairly overpowered ones? Surely you're joking.

[Subjective Effect]

I didn't say that, did I?

But weave whatever straw man you like.

[demagogue]

Your example was an unarmed MMA fighter and two armed assailants but go on.

If you're talking about the law of armed conflict ... well I guess I should have done this ages ago as a public service.

Everybody is an armchair lawyer in this debate. The most authoritative legal word is in these three sets of documents.

1. The HRC Commission of Inquiry finding Hamas responsible for war crimes and the IDF responsible of war crimes and crimes against humanity (much worse in terms of sentencing & scope): press version #1, COI Report #1, press version #2, COI Report #2 ... Well here are all the COI docs since I can't curate them for here just now.

2. The ICJ Advisory Opinion finding Israel's occupation in the West Bank illegal: press version, summary version, the Advisory Opinion

3. This isn't an authoritative decision yet, but here's the basic status of the ICJ genocide claim: genocide claim, I mean in terms of how an independent process would do the analysis by the book. And here are the ICJ Provisional Orders and proceedings records for the record, which anyway tells you the writing on the wall.

The thing to know about this is that Israel isn't even trying to defend itself according to Article 2 of the Genocide Convention. They're speaking as if the legal standard is the Holocaust, which is effective for their domestic audience, but makes it likely the ICJ is going to rule against them. I say that just as a lawyer predicting the outcome of a process without a dog in the race -- because they're not even bothering to give the justices a legal defense (it's not sure they could win it even with their best defense anyway), and it looks like they're setting the grounds for rejecting a decision against them because the ICJ must be anti-semetic.

If someone actually wanted to debate these issues, the right way to do it is find and quote the relevant language in these decisions, and then we can talk about the issues involved in that. For example, just to take #2, even some of the dissents aren't really debating that parts of the occupation activities are illegal on the actual standards; there's a debate if it amounts to apartheid, etc.

But one thing to note is that the disproportionate killings of civilians aren't really much part of the legal claims involved anyway. Talking about them is important, but not really a central issue here. Actions evincing the Israel government's intent and targeting of civilians beyond military strikes near residential areas per se tend to have more legal significance as far as a crime against humanity or genocide goes, etc.

I mean there are two discussions happening, the debate in the public sphere about people's personal feelings of ethics and then the legal debate which is better captured by the above documents at least as the right starting point.

[Subjective Effect]

My example was about playing by the same rules.

[demagogue]

Yes, the COI covers that ground, if that's what you wanted to actually talk about.
I think I edited that in later. (I wasn't sure when the first post happened, how much if any of the part after the first line or two got in then vs. in an edit.)

I recognize that a lot of people don't have the time or capacity to read and digest that much, though, which is fine.
People can still talk about things based on their intuitions.
But ideally that's how these things should at least get started.
Edit: I was giving the press release or summary versions which are much shorter and easier to follow for that reason.

[Starker]

The argument that Palestinians have moral failings doesn't work on me. Some people have likewise tried to argue that I shouldn't talk about human rights for the Palestinians, because they are anti-semitic, homophobic, etc. But, here's the thing... I don't believe in human rights for specific groups because of who these groups are. Who they are is irrelevant for me. I don't think gay people should have rights because they are gay, trans, etc. I don't particularly care or understand what it means to be gay, trans, etc, as it doesn't really concern me personally. I believe they should have rights because they are human.

So, coming from that standpoint, the argument that Palestinians deserve no rights and that their culture should be destroyed because they have carried out acts of vandalism against the cultural heritage of other people just seems like alien thinking for me, sort of a blue and orange morality, if you will. In the end, it seems no different than an argument from blood -- that Palestinians should be punished because of their blood, not because of who they are as individuals.

[Subjective Effect]

the argument that Palestinians deserve no rights and that their culture should be destroyed because they have carried out acts of vandalism against the cultural heritage of other people just seems like alien thinking for me

Who is making this argument and where? Because it sure as hell isn't me.

[Starker]

Your answer to cultural destruction in Palestine was that you don't care. So you do condone it.

Also, I mean, seriously... if your answer to, "Cultural destruction of Palestine is a crime," is, "Palestinians have no respect for cultural heritage on the other side," what am I to think?

[Subjective Effect]

I don't condone it and don't think it should happen, but that's what I think about all such types of destruction. It's part of the history of humanity and should be preserved, but when it's the destruction of things belonging to people who destroy the heritage of others, I find their whining about it hypocritical and therefore idiotic. I still don't think it should happen.

[Starker]

The question isn't whether Palestinians in part or in whole are "whining about it". The issue is that it's happening on a widespread scale. Also, there's the fact that the destruction of churches and mosques and other historical and religious sites concerns more than just Palestinians in Gaza.

And, of course, it concerns how Israel is conducting itself. By your very logic, they would have no right to "whine about" any vandalism of their cultural sites either.

[Subjective Effect]

But Israel isn't vandalising the sites - they are collaterally damaged. So it's not the same, at all.

Again - Israel held to a different standard. Their accidental damage of things is somehow equal to someone else's intentional and deliberate damage.

Clown world.

[SD]

It's all very well putting a 1948 no-blame before date on things, but the inter-tribal wars in that region have been going on for millennia. The Brits just took advantage of the old rivalries, like they did during the partition of India, creating arbitrary, artificial territories and reigniting old feuds. Ultimately they assuaged their guilt over allowing the Holocaust in Europe by exporting it to the outskirts of what they considered civilization. You know, where the coloured people live.

That's a real cop out. You can't just write everything off as ancient tribal conflicts. Romans, Persians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Rashiduns, Ottomans, Crusaders, and anyone else who ever had designs on the "Holy Land" were all colonisers and interlopers. They had no business being there, because it wasn't their land. Jews never had designs on anyone else's land. They weren't out to construct an empire, unlike the people who conquered them.

The Holocaust was the last straw for the community, and here we are today, with the Jewish people exercising sovereignty over their ancestral territory for the first time in more than 2,000 years. In a sane world we would be celebrating the most succcessful act of decolonisation in human history, but instead everyone is mourning because Jews managed to break out of the box marked 'victim' that the world had placed them in. Extraordinary.

Nor, for that matter, can you lay blame on the British. They inherited Palestine from the Turks after WWI, at the behest of the League of Nations. What sparked the conflict in the modern age, and ultimately led to partition, was Arab attacks upon Jews. It was the United Nations which eventually proposed the division; most of the land allocated to the Jews was the Negev desert. The ultimate irony is that many of the Arabs in the region were recent immigrants who had come to Judea because of the opportunities afforded by returning Jews. And those "coloured people" are no more coloured than Jews are.

Worth remembering too that the Nazis and the Palestinian leadership conspired to expand the Holocaust to the Levant.

https://jcpa.org/article/palestinian...the-holocaust/

[SD]

As long as we are asking questions, here's one... Why are there hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian territories?

Let's flip the question around: why shouldn't Jews live in places like Bethlehem? It can hardly be argued that they don't have history there; according to tradition, it's where both David and Jesus were born. Nablus, which is the coloniser name for Shechem, the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel - why shouldn't Jews live there? Hebron, where the Jewish patriarchs are buried, where David was crowned - should it really be off-limits to Jews in the 21st century?

This is the issue with looking at things from a strictly legal viewpoint. Under most interpretations of international law, settlements in the West Bank are illegal. No argument from me. But this is land from which the native Jewish inhabitants have been ethnically cleansed. The legal position may very well be that it's okay for Jews to be robbed of this land, but not for them to take any of it back. Whether it is moral or consistent is more subjective.

[DuatDweller]

Until Netanyahu gets Iranians mad, and they will throw a nuke over Israel, he won't stop killing people.

[Starker]

But Israel isn't vandalising the sites - they are collaterally damaged. So it's not the same, at all.

Again - Israel held to a different standard. Their accidental damage of things is somehow equal to someone else's intentional and deliberate damage.

Clown world.

How is driving a bulldozer through a cemetery collateral damage? Again, what military benefit is there in the destruction of gravestones? Clown world indeed.

[Starker]

Let's flip the question around: why shouldn't Jews live in places like Bethlehem? It can hardly be argued that they don't have history there; according to tradition, it's where both David and Jesus were born. Nablus, which is the coloniser name for Shechem, the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel - why shouldn't Jews live there? Hebron, where the Jewish patriarchs are buried, where David was crowned - should it really be off-limits to Jews in the 21st century?

This is the issue with looking at things from a strictly legal viewpoint. Under most interpretations of international law, settlements in the West Bank are illegal. No argument from me. But this is land from which the native Jewish inhabitants have been ethnically cleansed. The legal position may very well be that it's okay for Jews to be robbed of this land, but not for them to take any of it back. Whether it is moral or consistent is more subjective.

This is not a "strictly legal viewpoint". It's a matter of settling people into occupied territories, something that's internationally recognised as a war crime, yes, but it's also a matter of displacing people who have lived on the land for generations and disrupting their society. How is it moral to colonise a land of people already living there just because your extremely distant ancestors have lived there thousands of years ago?

[Subjective Effect]

How much time needs to have passed then? A generation? Two? And then you can say "you no longer belong here?".

I'm not of the "God gave us this" mindset, but what SD says it's important in refuting the ridiculous claim that Israel is a colonial project, when in fact the real colonial project is the Islamisation of the entire Middle East and North Africa.

As to bulldozers though cemeteries - you'll have to link some examples so I can have a look. My first thought is "is there a strategic military reason?". Are there tunnels under it? Is it adjacent to a launch site? Is it a significant impairment to military traffic in a way that vastly increases vulnerability? And in the reverse cases I've linked to it was simply vandalism of the "fuck this Jewish stuff" type.

[Starker]

Israel is specifically a colonial project, right from its inception. You'd just have go read the things early Zionists wrote to see plenty of examples in plain uncoached language. And it's still a colonial project. Or how else do you explain the settlers, then?

As for the destruction of cemeteries, just go look at the Wikipedia article I gave you about necroviolence. That's as good a place to start as any.

As for the excuses, what possible military value does a cemetery have or what benefit is there to the destruction of tombstones? Mind you, where there have been Jewish gravesites, the IDF has managed to remain completely respectful and leave the graves in pristine condition. It's only Palestinian graves that have been destroyed and only Palestinan bodies that have been desecrated.

[Tomi]

As for the excuses, what possible military value does a cemetery have or what benefit is there to the destruction of tombstones?

I may get in trouble for talking about this, but I don't want anyone to think that IDF would do anything immoral such as vandalising graves or desecrating the dead. The truth is that the graveyard strike was in fact Israel sabotaging Palestinians' top secret project called Operation Eisenfaust. The top scientists behind the project (a 4-year-old kid and their dog) who happened to live nearby were also killed, so the strike was a great success!

I find it a bit odd that a lot of people seem to see this conflict as a binary Good vs. Evil battle. At this point I think it's a bit naive to think that Israel would not bomb the shit out of Palestinians because they try to avoid civilian losses and needless destruction.
It's easy to swipe all that under the carpet though and label it as collateral damage, but in my opinion both sides of this conflict have their fair share of barbarians - they just use different (but still barbaric) methods to achieve their goals.

[demagogue]

How much time needs to have passed then? A generation? Two? And then you can say "you no longer belong here?".

The question at hand is if Palestinians belong in Palestine, where no time at all has passed.

As I already posted, the majority of Palestinians have already accepted that Israelis are there for good, just like Native Americans have for white settlers, just like Catholic North Irish have for the Protestants, just like black South Africans have for the white settlers. That's never been the debate. The debate has always been does the population living there at the time of settlement have a right to stay where their great grand parents, much less their parents, were born. And here you or anyway many people taking that line are talking about the greatx80 grandparents of the occupiers to apparently answer "no, they don't because they don't enough connection to the land. Your parents and grandparents may have been born here, but my greatx80 grandparents were born here. So get out." If you step back, that's an insane cognitive dissonance on its face.

Again, Palestinians aren't asking Israelis to leave at this point. Somebody always digs up one anecdotal comment as if it stands for all 5 million Palestinians. Sure, some Apaches would love for whites to suddenly disappear from North America too, and I'm sure you could easily find one to say that. But that's not the relevant question. The question is would Palestinians accept Israelis staying & be in peace if they get citizenship to a state that protects their rights, and on that the super-majority would.

Edit: While we're at it, let's write this out:

My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents were born here.

vs.

I was born here. And my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents.

And if we're talking about when Arabs entered the Levant area, that was already at least 65BCE, which is greatx82 grandparents. So even the "greatx80+ grandparent" connection of the Jewish population to the region is at best on par with the proto-Arabic speaking population.

But anyway again nobody is debating Jewish Israelis leaving. They are there for good. The only debate is if Palestinians have to leave (ethnically cleansed), and if not (since that's one of the highest crimes in int'l criminal law that there is; I don't think Israelis really have the stomach for it, push come to shove), when do they get citizenship to a state already? It's been 80+ years.

[Subjective Effect]

Nobody is debating Jewish Israelis leaving?

What drugs are you on right now?

[demagogue]

It's not a viable solution to the situation. Or you tell me, what is the case for Israeli Jews leaving that we have to debate?

A third way I can put it is, if one's starting point to a political course of action is ethnic cleansing, it's not a serious proposal legitimate enough to even debate. One could try to talk about how Israel's situation is like the French in Algeria, but I don't think that kind of debate is going to go far if you get into any details.

Edit: Also for I guess now the fifth time, the polls show a supermajority of Palestinians want citizenship to a viable state and not for the Jewish population to leave. The other thing to remember is cases like South Africa. People said apartheid in South Africa would never end until one day the entire edifice just crumbled immediately and completely, and at the center of that was protection of the white population in the new state, and once it was clear that the black population was getting equal citizenship, there was no serious debate about removing the white population, despite the exact same fear-mongering by the apartheid government that they argued justified their repressive measures all that time. I think this situation is like that as well. Once the chips are down, there's not really room for many options, and Jews leaving won't be one of them, which maybe people on the ground haven't thought about what they'd think in that situation, but that's what the case studies and polls indicate.

Also, how many Palestinians have you ever actually personally talked to about it?