How are those children different from the Palestinian children posing with guns swearing to destroy Israel? Not at all, the same mindless hate, in lockstep to eventual self destruction.
Palestinian children have much more experience because since they are born are taught how to use guns and that they have to kill infidels to go to Paradise
Putting ironic messages on projectile weapons is an ancient human tradition. There is a stone from a sling used by the Greeks in the 4th century BCE sitting in the British museum with the word “Catch” carved into it in Greek. However, having children do it is pretty damn creepy.
FYI: that’s an eight year old picture connected to the conflict with Lebanon. Those girls had just come out of a bomb shelter near the border in Israel proper, original borders, for the first time after five days of shelling. Still doesn’t excuse things, but it’s not nearly as horrific as if that picture wee in support of the current Israeli war crimes.
You see no difference between the hatred of the powerful, and the hatred of the powerless? Isn’t it reasonable to be more worried when you see the side that is able to destroy with impunity training its children to be destroyers? Threats of violence are always bad, but they are not equally bad, in a situation where the violence is so unequal.
Put another way: if someone chants “bomb the USA! bomb the USA!” it’s less of a threat than when an American chants “bomb such-and-such” because the USA has a history of bombing people with impunity. If that shell is ever fired into Gaza, it is a virtual certainty that no return fire remotely as effective will be coming back at the firer. (BTW that looks like a 155mm M107 shell – possibly intended to be fired from one of Israel’s many US-made Paladin self-propelled guns. “Made in USA!”)
“You see no difference between the hatred of the powerful, and the hatred of the powerless? ”
Silly comment.
This idea that we should somehow sympathise with the powerless simply *because* they are powerless is a dangerous one that has infected too much of the left.
In the UK, the BNP is quite powerless but that doesn’t mean that I feel any sympathy for them. Likewise I don’t see that I should cut the Palestinians any slack for dressing children as suicide bombers.
“This idea that we should somehow sympathize with the powerless simply *because* they are powerless is a dangerous one that has infected too much of the left.”
That IS a stupid idea. Luckily, it’s not why the left (or anyone) should sympathize with Palestinians: it’s because they’re the ones dying that we should sympathize, it’s because shitty Western colonialism has fucked them that we should sympathize, it’s because we fucking Americans are paying billions to help kill them that we should speak the fuck up.
Their racist or hateful bullshit doesn’t mean you can just sit and watch them die while retaining a moral high ground. If the BNP were being rounded up, penned in, then slaughtered at the slightest sign of resistance or resentment in acts of collective punishment, and you did nothing? That makes you a fucking evil shit-stain: you would not be absolved by the BNP’s shittiness or racist beliefs or even their hate-speech.
Well, of course I sympathise with anyone who is dying because of war and I wish that this wasn’t happening. I am not claiming anything else.
What I *am* disputing is the silly idea that Hamas is in the right and the Israeli government in the wrong simply because Hamas is less powerful and is less efficient at killing civilians.
I didn’t say Hamas is in the right. Show me where I said that and I’ll give you a cookie.
What I said was that when there’s a power differential, if the situation gets violent, the more powerful party is, by definition, taking advantage of the weakness of the powerless in order to exploit their advantage. There’s no way that’s a more moral position than if they restrained themselves.
You need to work on your reading skills.
staceyjwsays
Constant rockets are a threat to those that live there, those that are surrounded entirely by nations and peoples that hate them virulently. That want to see Israel disappear, to exterminate Jews, down to the last child, and who do not hesitate to say so. Maybe Israel seems so powerful from where you are sitting, but consult a map, and think about what its like to live there, on an itty bitty lot of land in the center of a hostile area. They may have military might, but ever think of why they need it? It’s not because others want to live with them peacefully.
And yes, Israel exists, and will fight to exist, whether others approve or not. I am not a Jew, nor religious, but I support them as the ONLY nation in that region with any rights for women and atheists, besides other freedoms. I hate to see anyone killed in war, but I just do not see any solution that doesn’t include it, so long as the Muslims consider the only solution to be destruction of Israel.
That said, in Anne’s day there was no Jewish homeland or Jewish army to protect her so she died in Hitler’s concentration camps. Thank God there is a Jewish homeland and the IDF today to keep the rest of the Jews from dying at the hands of a madman like Hezbollah’s Nasrallah or the Hamas whose goal, like Hitler, is not the establishment of a Palestinian state, but extermination of the Jews. Sorry if this doesn’t fit your stereotype whereby the only good Jew is a passive or dead one.
I’d like you all concerned to go through my blog: ” Do We Know Our Destiny” posted in speaking tree.in by clicking on my FB, where i expressed my concerns and liked to do something like this as in this photograph, but not on rocket or missiles , but by letters or emails etc….. Thanks
“You see no difference between the hatred of the powerful, and the hatred of the powerless?”
There is a difference, but the results are the same. Indoctrinating children to ferociously hate is a crime, whoever does it.
I do not give a rats wet arse if the palestinians instruct their children to hate and portray themselves on the net with weapons and hate mongering placards, or if I see the children of israeli settlers spouting the same hatred.
It is the destruction of generations, sacrifices to hate without the chance to come to a settlement. As in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda etc. – streams of blood, lots of blood have to flow before people get tired and wake up.
The Germans had to endure the destruction of their cities, of infrastructure, of millions of soldiers and civilians, the division of their nation before they woke up (and still there are idiots defending as of today a criminal regime) and came to peace.
I guess humans only learn to avoid war when a sufficient number has suffered, whatever that number maybe. Before that – there is the hope to win, to vanquish.
Neither the Israeli can vanquish the palestinians, short of genocide, nor can the palestinians push the israelis back into the sea.
The point however is: as long as israel gets unrestricted support for its action from the west, including the utterly moronic Mr. Harper of canada and the US, Germany France etc – israel has no interest in any solution, but will depend on a permanent war status to weaken palestinian resolve to form their own nation. Which is simply an illusory goal.
That is however beside the point I was making – teaching hatred to children. It seems marcus is unable to differentiate between the two topics.
Your reading skills are pathetic. Show me where I said anything remotely resembling that?
I am simply exploring the moral relationship between the powerful and the powerless. Obviously, I don’t condone the powerful exercising their power without restraint; I think that’s immoral. Consequently, if they do, it’s more likely the powerless will hate them – because hate’s about all they can do. If the powerful don’t want to be hated, they should restrain themselves.
Here’s a hint for you: this is all predicated on the idea that power has no value unless it’s being abused. Indeed, why would anyone desire power over another unless they intended to abuse it?
There is a difference, but the results are the same.
No, the results are what’s different. In a battle of the hates, the powerless are exterminated, and the powerful do the exterminating.
The Germans had to endure the destruction of their cities, of infrastructure, of millions of soldiers and civilians, the division of their nation before they woke up
The first world war must not have been bloody enough then.
I guess humans only learn to avoid war when a sufficient number has suffered
Is that why the predominantly Jewish Israel is invading the Gaza Strip right now? I seem to recall the Jews suffering quite a lot throughout history.
That is however beside the point I was making – teaching hatred to children.
That seems to contradict your earlier statement:
I do not give a rats wet arse if the palestinians instruct their children to hate and portray themselves on the net with weapons and hate mongering placards, or if I see the children of israeli settlers spouting the same hatred.
What is it, exactly, that you’re trying to say? We all agree hate is bad, wherever it is, especially when tought to children. What Marcus points out is that while both sides may hate, the hate of the powerful should probably be taken more seriously. You know, because of all the tanks they have. Do you disagree with that?
Again, same silly argument.
Power in itself doesn’t bequeath any moral superiority or inferiority. We should judge the morality of each side independently of whether one is more powerful than the other.
Take a hypothetical question: would you really have stopped World War 2 at the point where Allied military power was overwhelmingly strong and the Axis were on the verge of total defeat (but not totally defeated)?
Each individual action is morally equivalent, yes. But teaching children to hate has repercussions that depend on which side they’re on. If they grow up to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood or a violent Hamas cell, they will lob rockets and kill 45 people over 10 years. If they grow up to be a military leader in the IDF, they’ll invade Palestine and kill 45 people per day.
World War 2 WAS stopped at the point where Allied military power was overwhelmingly strong and the Axis were on the verge of total defeat. Axis forces saw that total defeat was inevitable, and surrendered. What you mean is this: what would have happened if they hadn’t surrendered and instead fought on to the bitter end, or if the allies hadn’t accepted their surrender? That’s simple, occupation and protracted guerilla war.
Sorry, I don’t buy this argument either.
The fact that Hamas is less efficient at killing than the IDF doesn’t mean that they are morally superior. Neither side should be trying to kill each other.
Your interpretation of the second world war is bizarre. Yes, some remaining units and the Flensburg government did formally surrender but this was after Berlin had been overrrun and Germany annihilated.
Germany *was* occupied after the war- didn’t you know? (as was Japan!). There was very little resistance or guerilla war.
Of course this is just misdirection and you have avoided the point of my question i.e. would you have stopped the war at the point where the Axis could still have done some harm but were manifestly weaker than the Allies.
According to your first argument, the mismatch in power would have been a powerful moral argument in favour of stopping the war- which is obviously rubbish.
nrdosays
I appreciate the distinction, but one of the most basic tactics of Islamic terrorism has been the process of intentionally provoking military incursions into civilian areas. The fact that the Israelis have now become powerful doesn’t change the fact that there are several groups that rely on this tactic to keep the war going, and in light of their success in the 1990s, we can’t ignore the power of a random terrorist. Asking people to ignore rockets and suicide bombs is asking them to a go against human nature.
I’m sure she meant well, but what Taslima posted above is propaganda. I happen to agree that Israel is in the wrong in this particular clash, but it is still propaganda in the sense that it (1) presents inaccurate context, being from a years-old conflict over illegal shelling from Lebanon (2) makes it easy and simple to “other” the subjects of the material and (3) brings you no closer to an actual understanding of the problem.
If you teach a kid to hate his neighbor, that’s wrong because you’re teaching a child to hate.
If you teach a kid with nukes to hate his neighbor, the morality of that single action is identical. But then the kid uses its nukes on its neighbor. Don’t you think that changes the dynamic? Are you not partially responsible for the resulting fallout?
I apologize if I misunderstood your intent, but your hypothetical question was very vulnerable to goalpoast shifting. “Oh no, I don’t mean THAT, I mean slightly BEFORE that.” It may be obvious to you, but it’s confusing to me, and it’s also rapidly taking on a life of it’s own. I also think you’re purposefully inflating my position, to a point I’m not comfortable with. Please reconsider what you think my position is, without assuming I’m an idiot.
Anyway. I think you’re missing my point. The point at which the military disparity would have become great enough that the Allies should have stopped was never reached, because the Axis forces surrendered. Had the Allies continued hunting and killing Nazis long after their military was broken and their troops scattered, occupying their country for decades, bombing civilian homes because “maybe they contained weapons used by Nazi seperatists”, then yes, they should have stopped. And I think you agree.
the process of intentionally provoking military incursions into civilian areas
There’s one very very easy way to defuse that technique: don’t do military incursions into civilian areas. That leaves the other guy looking bad.
Take the current situation with Hamas – their rockets did, basically, no damage at all. Yes, they were being aggressive but it was a weak display. If Israel had sucked it up, allowed iron dome to absorb virtually all of it, and had complained to the UN and tried to get the UN involved in stopping Hamas, then they’d have seized the moral high ground. Suppose a toddler attacks Mike Tyson. We respect Tyson more if he gently blocks the attacks, rather than flattening the child with a punch. If the child deliberately attacked Tyson in an attempt to make him look like a beast by flattening him, and Tyson flattens him, then Tyson has successfully played into his opponent’s hand and made himself look bad – his right to complain is minimal and indeed we would sympathize with the toddler even if the toddler were the aggressor.
It’s all about proportionality, which is something “600 eyes for one eye” doctrines ignore.
In a battle of the hates, the powerless are exterminated, and the powerful do the exterminating.
Yes, and more often than not, the powerful self-justify their actions – which never works because resorting to force/advantage of power is always less moral than exercising restraint. This leaves the powerless, who have nothing to do but hate the situation they are in and hate the powerful for exploiting the power they have over them.
StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!says
Who knows what Anne Frank would have thought.
She was murdered in the Shoah.
What I do know, is that Hamas started the current war by firing rockets at Israel and the current round in the endless conflict by kidnapping and murdering three Israeli teenagers.
Hamas have refused ceasefires and refused to accept Israel even has a right to exist.
Hamas could end this war overnight if they stopped firing rockets and surrendered.
No nation on Earth would put up with constant rocket fire aimed at its civilians. Why should Israel be any different? Why should Israel accept a constant murderous assault on its people and not fight back? Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself from enemy attack.
Hamas firing rockets at it is not acceptable and has to be stopped.
We all agree Hamas is bad. Stop using that to excuse a massacre. When someone uses an atrocity to excuse atrocities, they’re still committing atrocities. Israel is NOT the good guy here. There are no good guys. It’s all bad, all the time, from all sides.
Here’s some things your propaganda mill of choice hasn’t told you.
But Israeli soldiers killed them just the same: http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-smells-israels-fear-of-escalation-and-so-the-rockets-keep-coming/
> Hamas has had no interest in a major escalation, and had not been directly attacking Israel until the last few days. But ever since one of its members, Mohammed Obeid, was killed in an Israeli border attack at the end of last month — an apparent error: the IDF thought it was firing at a rocket-launch cell, but actually struck Hamas members deployed to prevent rocket fire — it has changed its approach.
The military action “Bring back our brothers” is directly responsible for an Israeli military operation into the West Bank, causing hundreds of arrests, demonstrations, and at least five dead Palestinians, two of them kids: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.590861
> Two youth killed in violent clashes as thousands mark Nakba Day, 11 injured; Palestinian sources say they were shot by Border Police. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.601333
> Death of Mustafa Aslan, 22, brings Palestinian death toll in operation to rescue kidnapped Israeli teens to five.
So 45 over 10 years, each of them a tragedy all on its own. But Israel beat that in a single day.
And why are they so mad that militia groups form to send rockets over the wall? Well, other than the fact that they were displaced in order to make room for the state of Israel, Gaza has been sealed since 2007. No one may leave or enter, and Israel maintains complete control. It’s occupied: http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20100531_the_siege_on_gaza
> Although Israel withdrew its forces from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, it continues to maintain complete control of the area’s airspace and territorial waters, and of most of the land crossings. As a result, Gaza residents wishing to leave the area must first obtain a permit from Israel. Since the siege began, Israel has only granted permits in rare cases that it classifies as “humanitarian.” The policy also applies to residents who merely wish to cross through Israel in order to reach the West Bank. http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20091227_data_on_the_siege_on_gaza
> Israel allows only 35 kinds of goods, which it defines “humanitarian”, to enter the Gaza Strip, compared with some 4,000 kinds of goods entering Gaza prior to the siege.
> Entry of most materials intended for industry, agriculture, and construction is prohibited
And in case you think I’m using biased sources, every one of these sources is Israeli.
That is a very old picture; circulated periodically on the net. I have seen it several times over the past few years.
While it’s an eloquent and appalling example of what perpetual war is doing to Israeli society, citing it now with the implication that it reflects Israeli public opinion on the current conflict is rather similar to Faux News’s posting old footage of dancing Palestinians on Sept 12 2001 and claiming they were celebrating the WTC attacks.
Amazing how Israel’s supporters are outraged w/ Palesinians celebrating rocket attacks on Israel but just love Israelis celebrating the deaths of Palestinians, even to the extent that Israelis nearby are having picnics and watching the bombs explode in Gaza. Its almost hypocritical.
IF Hamas lays down weapons, there would be peace. If Israel does, they will be eliminated. Wiping them from existence is indeed the goal, and anyone paying attention knows this.
Israel is using quite a bit of restraint, considering. I cannot even imagine if the USA was being fired on, what we would do, no matter how “weak” the opposition seems to be. And this goes for all other nations as well, even peaceful ones. How many rockets would any other nation take before they say enough? But Israelies are supposed to do nothing, because some don’t like that they exist as a state in the first place? Do you think its their duty to fight back at the same level, or stop retaliating as soon as Gaza stops sending rockets? Come on. Why do they have to play by the rules of Hamas? They must defend themselves, its not as simple as one rocket for another rocket exchange.
Why do people forget that its ISRAEL that is always offering peace that the Arabs reject? If they lay down arms, they will be wiped out. Is that what you all want? The one nation in the entire area that actually gives women and atheists freedom, to be wiped out? What good would this do?
Who knows what Ann Frank would say. BUt I am pretty sure she would defend Israel.
Israel sometimes has reasonable offers on the table, but not always. It goes back and forth. The initial, early 1990s process was sabotaged by Hamas’ first suicide bombings. Then in the late 1990s/early 2000s, Israel Netanyahu’s first government was invited the “second” Intifadah. The Palestinians then had a severe leadership vacuum and failed to take advantage of the disengagement in 2005 and now, in my opinion, it was (largely) Netanyahu who sabotaged the latest deal with Kerry and Abbas.
If you try to see past your support for just one side or another, you can see that both sides drift back and forth between reason and irrationality.
Oh, you think the walls will come down, the assassinations will stop, and everything will be roses and unicorn farts? Gee, is it really all that simple?
Of all the things they might be doing, like preparing suicide vests or grabbing a rifle for some light sniping along the border, that is harmless and a fair enough way to express their feelings. It is the feelings kept inside that fester, rot, and emerge as something far worse. Let them have their markers and words.
How are those children different from the Palestinian children posing with guns swearing to destroy Israel? Not at all, the same mindless hate, in lockstep to eventual self destruction.
Palestinian children have much more experience because since they are born are taught how to use guns and that they have to kill infidels to go to Paradise
Putting ironic messages on projectile weapons is an ancient human tradition. There is a stone from a sling used by the Greeks in the 4th century BCE sitting in the British museum with the word “Catch” carved into it in Greek. However, having children do it is pretty damn creepy.
FYI: that’s an eight year old picture connected to the conflict with Lebanon. Those girls had just come out of a bomb shelter near the border in Israel proper, original borders, for the first time after five days of shelling. Still doesn’t excuse things, but it’s not nearly as horrific as if that picture wee in support of the current Israeli war crimes.
Not at all, the same mindless hate
You see no difference between the hatred of the powerful, and the hatred of the powerless? Isn’t it reasonable to be more worried when you see the side that is able to destroy with impunity training its children to be destroyers? Threats of violence are always bad, but they are not equally bad, in a situation where the violence is so unequal.
Put another way: if someone chants “bomb the USA! bomb the USA!” it’s less of a threat than when an American chants “bomb such-and-such” because the USA has a history of bombing people with impunity. If that shell is ever fired into Gaza, it is a virtual certainty that no return fire remotely as effective will be coming back at the firer. (BTW that looks like a 155mm M107 shell – possibly intended to be fired from one of Israel’s many US-made Paladin self-propelled guns. “Made in USA!”)
War sucks.
Thank you Marcus. Very well said.
“You see no difference between the hatred of the powerful, and the hatred of the powerless? ”
Silly comment.
This idea that we should somehow sympathise with the powerless simply *because* they are powerless is a dangerous one that has infected too much of the left.
In the UK, the BNP is quite powerless but that doesn’t mean that I feel any sympathy for them. Likewise I don’t see that I should cut the Palestinians any slack for dressing children as suicide bombers.
As Kraut says, it works both ways.
“This idea that we should somehow sympathize with the powerless simply *because* they are powerless is a dangerous one that has infected too much of the left.”
That IS a stupid idea. Luckily, it’s not why the left (or anyone) should sympathize with Palestinians: it’s because they’re the ones dying that we should sympathize, it’s because shitty Western colonialism has fucked them that we should sympathize, it’s because we fucking Americans are paying billions to help kill them that we should speak the fuck up.
Their racist or hateful bullshit doesn’t mean you can just sit and watch them die while retaining a moral high ground. If the BNP were being rounded up, penned in, then slaughtered at the slightest sign of resistance or resentment in acts of collective punishment, and you did nothing? That makes you a fucking evil shit-stain: you would not be absolved by the BNP’s shittiness or racist beliefs or even their hate-speech.
Well, of course I sympathise with anyone who is dying because of war and I wish that this wasn’t happening. I am not claiming anything else.
What I *am* disputing is the silly idea that Hamas is in the right and the Israeli government in the wrong simply because Hamas is less powerful and is less efficient at killing civilians.
I didn’t say Hamas is in the right. Show me where I said that and I’ll give you a cookie.
What I said was that when there’s a power differential, if the situation gets violent, the more powerful party is, by definition, taking advantage of the weakness of the powerless in order to exploit their advantage. There’s no way that’s a more moral position than if they restrained themselves.
You need to work on your reading skills.
Constant rockets are a threat to those that live there, those that are surrounded entirely by nations and peoples that hate them virulently. That want to see Israel disappear, to exterminate Jews, down to the last child, and who do not hesitate to say so. Maybe Israel seems so powerful from where you are sitting, but consult a map, and think about what its like to live there, on an itty bitty lot of land in the center of a hostile area. They may have military might, but ever think of why they need it? It’s not because others want to live with them peacefully.
And yes, Israel exists, and will fight to exist, whether others approve or not. I am not a Jew, nor religious, but I support them as the ONLY nation in that region with any rights for women and atheists, besides other freedoms. I hate to see anyone killed in war, but I just do not see any solution that doesn’t include it, so long as the Muslims consider the only solution to be destruction of Israel.
Anne Frank would have happily written on a bomb meant for Hitler, much like these WWII soldiers that he believed to be of an inferior race: http://assets2.motherboard.tv/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/ca1ea10f09b9635d54dd016992088f0f.jpg
That said, in Anne’s day there was no Jewish homeland or Jewish army to protect her so she died in Hitler’s concentration camps. Thank God there is a Jewish homeland and the IDF today to keep the rest of the Jews from dying at the hands of a madman like Hezbollah’s Nasrallah or the Hamas whose goal, like Hitler, is not the establishment of a Palestinian state, but extermination of the Jews. Sorry if this doesn’t fit your stereotype whereby the only good Jew is a passive or dead one.
I’d like you all concerned to go through my blog: ” Do We Know Our Destiny” posted in speaking tree.in by clicking on my FB, where i expressed my concerns and liked to do something like this as in this photograph, but not on rocket or missiles , but by letters or emails etc….. Thanks
Nice….! Please go through my Blog ” Do We Know Our Destiny” posted in speakingtree.in through my Facebook
“You see no difference between the hatred of the powerful, and the hatred of the powerless?”
There is a difference, but the results are the same. Indoctrinating children to ferociously hate is a crime, whoever does it.
I do not give a rats wet arse if the palestinians instruct their children to hate and portray themselves on the net with weapons and hate mongering placards, or if I see the children of israeli settlers spouting the same hatred.
It is the destruction of generations, sacrifices to hate without the chance to come to a settlement. As in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda etc. – streams of blood, lots of blood have to flow before people get tired and wake up.
The Germans had to endure the destruction of their cities, of infrastructure, of millions of soldiers and civilians, the division of their nation before they woke up (and still there are idiots defending as of today a criminal regime) and came to peace.
I guess humans only learn to avoid war when a sufficient number has suffered, whatever that number maybe. Before that – there is the hope to win, to vanquish.
Neither the Israeli can vanquish the palestinians, short of genocide, nor can the palestinians push the israelis back into the sea.
The point however is: as long as israel gets unrestricted support for its action from the west, including the utterly moronic Mr. Harper of canada and the US, Germany France etc – israel has no interest in any solution, but will depend on a permanent war status to weaken palestinian resolve to form their own nation. Which is simply an illusory goal.
That is however beside the point I was making – teaching hatred to children. It seems marcus is unable to differentiate between the two topics.
It seems marcus is unable to differentiate between the two topics.
You wasted a lot of words attempting to establish a false moral equivalence – and, in the process, brought in more unrelated issues than I did.
Okay, if you think indoctrinating children to hate is acceptable in any circumstance: fuck off. I have nothing more to say to you.
Your reading skills are pathetic. Show me where I said anything remotely resembling that?
I am simply exploring the moral relationship between the powerful and the powerless. Obviously, I don’t condone the powerful exercising their power without restraint; I think that’s immoral. Consequently, if they do, it’s more likely the powerless will hate them – because hate’s about all they can do. If the powerful don’t want to be hated, they should restrain themselves.
Here’s a hint for you: this is all predicated on the idea that power has no value unless it’s being abused. Indeed, why would anyone desire power over another unless they intended to abuse it?
There is a difference, but the results are the same.
No, the results are what’s different. In a battle of the hates, the powerless are exterminated, and the powerful do the exterminating.
The Germans had to endure the destruction of their cities, of infrastructure, of millions of soldiers and civilians, the division of their nation before they woke up
The first world war must not have been bloody enough then.
I guess humans only learn to avoid war when a sufficient number has suffered
Is that why the predominantly Jewish Israel is invading the Gaza Strip right now? I seem to recall the Jews suffering quite a lot throughout history.
That is however beside the point I was making – teaching hatred to children.
That seems to contradict your earlier statement:
I do not give a rats wet arse if the palestinians instruct their children to hate and portray themselves on the net with weapons and hate mongering placards, or if I see the children of israeli settlers spouting the same hatred.
What is it, exactly, that you’re trying to say? We all agree hate is bad, wherever it is, especially when tought to children. What Marcus points out is that while both sides may hate, the hate of the powerful should probably be taken more seriously. You know, because of all the tanks they have. Do you disagree with that?
Again, same silly argument.
Power in itself doesn’t bequeath any moral superiority or inferiority. We should judge the morality of each side independently of whether one is more powerful than the other.
Take a hypothetical question: would you really have stopped World War 2 at the point where Allied military power was overwhelmingly strong and the Axis were on the verge of total defeat (but not totally defeated)?
Each individual action is morally equivalent, yes. But teaching children to hate has repercussions that depend on which side they’re on. If they grow up to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood or a violent Hamas cell, they will lob rockets and kill 45 people over 10 years. If they grow up to be a military leader in the IDF, they’ll invade Palestine and kill 45 people per day.
World War 2 WAS stopped at the point where Allied military power was overwhelmingly strong and the Axis were on the verge of total defeat. Axis forces saw that total defeat was inevitable, and surrendered. What you mean is this: what would have happened if they hadn’t surrendered and instead fought on to the bitter end, or if the allies hadn’t accepted their surrender? That’s simple, occupation and protracted guerilla war.
Sorry, I don’t buy this argument either.
The fact that Hamas is less efficient at killing than the IDF doesn’t mean that they are morally superior. Neither side should be trying to kill each other.
Your interpretation of the second world war is bizarre. Yes, some remaining units and the Flensburg government did formally surrender but this was after Berlin had been overrrun and Germany annihilated.
Germany *was* occupied after the war- didn’t you know? (as was Japan!). There was very little resistance or guerilla war.
Of course this is just misdirection and you have avoided the point of my question i.e. would you have stopped the war at the point where the Axis could still have done some harm but were manifestly weaker than the Allies.
According to your first argument, the mismatch in power would have been a powerful moral argument in favour of stopping the war- which is obviously rubbish.
I appreciate the distinction, but one of the most basic tactics of Islamic terrorism has been the process of intentionally provoking military incursions into civilian areas. The fact that the Israelis have now become powerful doesn’t change the fact that there are several groups that rely on this tactic to keep the war going, and in light of their success in the 1990s, we can’t ignore the power of a random terrorist. Asking people to ignore rockets and suicide bombs is asking them to a go against human nature.
I’m sure she meant well, but what Taslima posted above is propaganda. I happen to agree that Israel is in the wrong in this particular clash, but it is still propaganda in the sense that it (1) presents inaccurate context, being from a years-old conflict over illegal shelling from Lebanon (2) makes it easy and simple to “other” the subjects of the material and (3) brings you no closer to an actual understanding of the problem.
If you teach a kid to hate his neighbor, that’s wrong because you’re teaching a child to hate.
If you teach a kid with nukes to hate his neighbor, the morality of that single action is identical. But then the kid uses its nukes on its neighbor. Don’t you think that changes the dynamic? Are you not partially responsible for the resulting fallout?
I apologize if I misunderstood your intent, but your hypothetical question was very vulnerable to goalpoast shifting. “Oh no, I don’t mean THAT, I mean slightly BEFORE that.” It may be obvious to you, but it’s confusing to me, and it’s also rapidly taking on a life of it’s own. I also think you’re purposefully inflating my position, to a point I’m not comfortable with. Please reconsider what you think my position is, without assuming I’m an idiot.
Anyway. I think you’re missing my point. The point at which the military disparity would have become great enough that the Allies should have stopped was never reached, because the Axis forces surrendered. Had the Allies continued hunting and killing Nazis long after their military was broken and their troops scattered, occupying their country for decades, bombing civilian homes because “maybe they contained weapons used by Nazi seperatists”, then yes, they should have stopped. And I think you agree.
the process of intentionally provoking military incursions into civilian areas
There’s one very very easy way to defuse that technique: don’t do military incursions into civilian areas. That leaves the other guy looking bad.
Take the current situation with Hamas – their rockets did, basically, no damage at all. Yes, they were being aggressive but it was a weak display. If Israel had sucked it up, allowed iron dome to absorb virtually all of it, and had complained to the UN and tried to get the UN involved in stopping Hamas, then they’d have seized the moral high ground. Suppose a toddler attacks Mike Tyson. We respect Tyson more if he gently blocks the attacks, rather than flattening the child with a punch. If the child deliberately attacked Tyson in an attempt to make him look like a beast by flattening him, and Tyson flattens him, then Tyson has successfully played into his opponent’s hand and made himself look bad – his right to complain is minimal and indeed we would sympathize with the toddler even if the toddler were the aggressor.
It’s all about proportionality, which is something “600 eyes for one eye” doctrines ignore.
In a battle of the hates, the powerless are exterminated, and the powerful do the exterminating.
Yes, and more often than not, the powerful self-justify their actions – which never works because resorting to force/advantage of power is always less moral than exercising restraint. This leaves the powerless, who have nothing to do but hate the situation they are in and hate the powerful for exploiting the power they have over them.
Frank would have wept at all violence.
Who knows what Anne Frank would have thought.
She was murdered in the Shoah.
What I do know, is that Hamas started the current war by firing rockets at Israel and the current round in the endless conflict by kidnapping and murdering three Israeli teenagers.
Hamas have refused ceasefires and refused to accept Israel even has a right to exist.
Hamas could end this war overnight if they stopped firing rockets and surrendered.
No nation on Earth would put up with constant rocket fire aimed at its civilians. Why should Israel be any different? Why should Israel accept a constant murderous assault on its people and not fight back? Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself from enemy attack.
Hamas firing rockets at it is not acceptable and has to be stopped.
We all agree Hamas is bad. Stop using that to excuse a massacre. When someone uses an atrocity to excuse atrocities, they’re still committing atrocities. Israel is NOT the good guy here. There are no good guys. It’s all bad, all the time, from all sides.
Here’s some things your propaganda mill of choice hasn’t told you.
Hamas had a task force to hunt and arrest terror cells sending rockets over the wall:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-establishes-special-force-to-prevent-rocket-fire/
IDF officials agreed they were doing a good job:
http://972mag.com/head-of-idfs-gaza-command-hamas-is-the-new-policeman-in-gaza/82895/
They were quite successful, and continued even after escalating tension:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-arrests-terror-cell-responsible-for-rocket-fire-on-israel/
But Israeli soldiers killed them just the same:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-smells-israels-fear-of-escalation-and-so-the-rockets-keep-coming/
> Hamas has had no interest in a major escalation, and had not been directly attacking Israel until the last few days. But ever since one of its members, Mohammed Obeid, was killed in an Israeli border attack at the end of last month — an apparent error: the IDF thought it was firing at a rocket-launch cell, but actually struck Hamas members deployed to prevent rocket fire — it has changed its approach.
The kidnapping and murder of three teens was used to rile up the Israeli people and excuse military action, while leaders knew they were already dead:
http://972mag.com/how-the-public-was-manipulated-into-believing-the-teens-were-alive/92865/
The military action “Bring back our brothers” is directly responsible for an Israeli military operation into the West Bank, causing hundreds of arrests, demonstrations, and at least five dead Palestinians, two of them kids:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.590861
> Two youth killed in violent clashes as thousands mark Nakba Day, 11 injured; Palestinian sources say they were shot by Border Police.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.601333
> Death of Mustafa Aslan, 22, brings Palestinian death toll in operation to rescue kidnapped Israeli teens to five.
Rocket attacks over the last 10 years caused 45 Israeli casualties:
http://www.btselem.org/topic/israeli_civilians
44 people from mid 2004 to the end of 2012.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/rockets2011.html
No casualties since the end of 2012, until 1 casualty on July 15.
So 45 over 10 years, each of them a tragedy all on its own. But Israel beat that in a single day.
And why are they so mad that militia groups form to send rockets over the wall? Well, other than the fact that they were displaced in order to make room for the state of Israel, Gaza has been sealed since 2007. No one may leave or enter, and Israel maintains complete control. It’s occupied:
http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20100531_the_siege_on_gaza
> Although Israel withdrew its forces from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, it continues to maintain complete control of the area’s airspace and territorial waters, and of most of the land crossings. As a result, Gaza residents wishing to leave the area must first obtain a permit from Israel. Since the siege began, Israel has only granted permits in rare cases that it classifies as “humanitarian.” The policy also applies to residents who merely wish to cross through Israel in order to reach the West Bank.
http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20091227_data_on_the_siege_on_gaza
> Israel allows only 35 kinds of goods, which it defines “humanitarian”, to enter the Gaza Strip, compared with some 4,000 kinds of goods entering Gaza prior to the siege.
> Entry of most materials intended for industry, agriculture, and construction is prohibited
And in case you think I’m using biased sources, every one of these sources is Israeli.
That is a very old picture; circulated periodically on the net. I have seen it several times over the past few years.
While it’s an eloquent and appalling example of what perpetual war is doing to Israeli society, citing it now with the implication that it reflects Israeli public opinion on the current conflict is rather similar to Faux News’s posting old footage of dancing Palestinians on Sept 12 2001 and claiming they were celebrating the WTC attacks.
Amazing how Israel’s supporters are outraged w/ Palesinians celebrating rocket attacks on Israel but just love Israelis celebrating the deaths of Palestinians, even to the extent that Israelis nearby are having picnics and watching the bombs explode in Gaza. Its almost hypocritical.
IF Hamas lays down weapons, there would be peace. If Israel does, they will be eliminated. Wiping them from existence is indeed the goal, and anyone paying attention knows this.
Israel is using quite a bit of restraint, considering. I cannot even imagine if the USA was being fired on, what we would do, no matter how “weak” the opposition seems to be. And this goes for all other nations as well, even peaceful ones. How many rockets would any other nation take before they say enough? But Israelies are supposed to do nothing, because some don’t like that they exist as a state in the first place? Do you think its their duty to fight back at the same level, or stop retaliating as soon as Gaza stops sending rockets? Come on. Why do they have to play by the rules of Hamas? They must defend themselves, its not as simple as one rocket for another rocket exchange.
Why do people forget that its ISRAEL that is always offering peace that the Arabs reject? If they lay down arms, they will be wiped out. Is that what you all want? The one nation in the entire area that actually gives women and atheists freedom, to be wiped out? What good would this do?
Who knows what Ann Frank would say. BUt I am pretty sure she would defend Israel.
Israel sometimes has reasonable offers on the table, but not always. It goes back and forth. The initial, early 1990s process was sabotaged by Hamas’ first suicide bombings. Then in the late 1990s/early 2000s, Israel Netanyahu’s first government was invited the “second” Intifadah. The Palestinians then had a severe leadership vacuum and failed to take advantage of the disengagement in 2005 and now, in my opinion, it was (largely) Netanyahu who sabotaged the latest deal with Kerry and Abbas.
If you try to see past your support for just one side or another, you can see that both sides drift back and forth between reason and irrationality.
IF Hamas lays down weapons, there would be peace
Oh, you think the walls will come down, the assassinations will stop, and everything will be roses and unicorn farts? Gee, is it really all that simple?
Of all the things they might be doing, like preparing suicide vests or grabbing a rifle for some light sniping along the border, that is harmless and a fair enough way to express their feelings. It is the feelings kept inside that fester, rot, and emerge as something far worse. Let them have their markers and words.