Israel, Hamas, etc

[Oscar_Kipling]

We're discussing it. I'm talking about how Jews are defending themselves from a genocidal enemy, and you want to talk about the consequences of Jews defending themselves from a genocidal enemy.

You want to talk about the consequences of Israel's actions.

Why doesn't anyone ever want to talk about the consequences for attacking Israel? As if Israel is just supposed to suck it up and tolerate the murder of her citizens because it would make people like you happy? How about no?

Yes, I want to talk about consequences, at least that is a significant part of what I want to talk about. We are in fact not discussing the topic. You have repeatedly demonstrated that instead of discussing the topic, you prefer to instead point out that we should be discussing a different much better topic.

My assertion is that one fights a war to win. What happens after will happen after. Nobody said "let's not bomb Tokyo or Berlin because of what will happen after the war". They bombed enemy capitals knowing full well that civilians would die, because the enemy state had to be smashed. But somehow Israel alone, of every state ever in the history of the world, is supposed to worry more about the enemy than itself. How about no?

Well okay first off my assertion was:

 "Of course people worried about German and Japanese civilians and made at least some decisions based on post war civilian considerations."

Which was in response to your assertion: "Nobody was worried about German or Japanese civilians during the second world war, because there was a war to be won"

and is fundamentally different than:
"let's not bomb Tokyo or Berlin because of what will happen after the war"

But as I said, I accept that we are doing completely different things here. I do not believe that the literal meaning of your words directly map onto the point you are trying to get across.

I could talk about how many things 'win' can mean in this context, but I also believe that the particulars of how a 'win' is defined is not going to matter to you because you are not interested in discussing your ideas in detail or how those details can be construed.

That's true, and Gaza has to be deradicalized in the same way that Germany post 1945 was deradicalized. That means occupation and a revamped education system and a forced acceptance of at least some western values.

This is actually the sort of thing I wanted to discuss, thanks for actually stating that something outside of simply 'wiping out Hamas in Gaza needs to happen'. I appreciate that you even put a little detail into what exactly that 'something' is. I wish our conversations went more like this.

I would say that you care more the Palestinians than the Israelis. Which is sick, but you're entitled to your opinions.

Yes, I know you would say that, you have said that, like a bunch..

They react to it the way any other country reacts to the murder of it's citizens by an enemy state.

You seem to want to impress upon me that historical practice affirms the virtuousness of this reaction, okay. The reaction that you had appeared to adamantly assert as the only one that matters is 'Hamas is destroyed in Gaza'. I've been saying that I think there are some additional considerations that are worth discussing.

Why do you think a different set of rules should apply to the Jewish state than anyone else?

There's a name for that, you know.

At some point, I did say that I have higher expectations of Israel than I do of Hamas, and I stand by that. Hamas is a terrorist organization pantomiming as a government, Israel is an actual government. However, I have the same expectations of the Palestinian people as I do of the Israeli people. What is that called?

You seem to think that Jews should be more Christian than Christians.

No I don't. Do you have me confused with someone else? I don't think Christianity should be the basis for any government policy, much less Israeli policy.

Were Palestinians ready for a state on 10/6, mere hours before they carried out the largest murder of Jews since the Holocaust?

Okay, so did he support it in September? if not, when was the last time that he did, and what happened?

What's interesting is that you place all the responsibility for improving the situation on Israel. Not Hamas, or the Arabs generally, or the Iranians. Just Israel. Why?

Yeah, I didn't say that, moreover this is a classic example declining to discuss the topic in order to point out that the topic of discussion is wrong and should in fact be a different better topic. 

Or maybe, just maybe, Israel is trying to fight a moral war with moral means. Or is that too far fetched? 

   
Are you saying that it would be immoral for Israel to go against the US' desires and 'have at it'? If so why? if not then I do not understand your point and I ask that you phrase it differently because your post is unclear to me.

So the untrained and unarmed Jews, including women, children, and the elderly, being transported by a vast industrial machine to their own demise, should have removed Hitler from power.

I mean if they had opportunities then yeah, for instance I half remember that there was some amount of sabotage that the enslaved Jews engaged in when they were forced to work in German war manufacturing. They did not have much if any opportunity, but I consider this to be an example of making the most out of a very dire set of circumstances. Of course if a Jew in this situation didn't sabotage the bolts in a V2 rocket or whatever because they were afraid of repercussions, I certainly wouldn't go on to claim any casualties of that particular rocket's attack were their fault.

I'm not a 1940's Jewish physicist, but some of my most favorite Physicists were 1940's Jewish physicist, in part because without 1940's Jewish physicists the Manhattan project never succeeds. I do not speak for 1940's Jewish physicists that directly or indirectly contributed to the Manhattan project, but to say that some of them were partially motivated by the fact that they were Jewish people whose intellectual aptitudes positioned them to take advantage of an opportunity to remove Hitler from power does not seem at all off base to me. To say that at least some of them at the time felt that the opportunity granted them by their intellectual aptitudes made their contributions a responsibility would also not be a particularly fantastical take. 

With that out of the way, pretending that I said that Hitler or Iran
was the lone responsibility of the Jews is churlish at best. I do not think that the Jewish people of the world were solely responsible for removing Hitler any more than the Chinese were solely responsible for removing the byzantine set of committees and generals that ran the Japanese war effort.

Perhaps I can put it in a way that you can connect with: We just saw thousands of Hezbollah pagers blow up, we can crudely approximate what it must have taken to pull that off. The idea that the folks that pulled that off would choose to sit out an opportunity to drastically affect their circumstances, that is a coup in Iran, is almost inconceivable to me. I believe Israel would demand to be a part of it. The idea that the US and the EU would prohibit Israel from participation in such an operation on the basis that Israel does not and should not bear any responsibility is only slightly less inconceivable. However all of that is beside the point, Israel is responsible because the existential threat that Iran poses and the consequences that a regime change could have on Israel, makes Israel responsible for their own security.

And again, just to be clear, I do not subscribe to the assertion that it would be easy or even a good idea, I think it is fraught and dangerous and could very well leave everyone in an even more precarious position in the long run.   

Are you only immoral or also foolish?

At times I can be neither, either or both.

[Fenris]

Yes, I want to talk about consequences, at least that is a significant part of what I want to talk about. We are in fact not discussing the topic. You have repeatedly demonstrated that instead of discussing the topic, you prefer to instead point out that we should be discussing a different much better topic.

So you think we should separate the consequences of the Hamas attack from the consequences of the Israeli response to the Hamas attack.

No. I am not going to do that. I'm so very tired of the world at large ignoring what the terrorists do and just want to talk about the Israeli response.

But as I said, I accept that we are doing completely different things here. I do not believe that the literal meaning of your words directly map onto the point you are trying to get across.

Because you and you alone get to decide what words mean.

This is actually the sort of thing I wanted to discuss, thanks for actually stating that something outside of simply 'wiping out Hamas in Gaza needs to happen'.

Hamas has to be destroyed first. That's step one.

I appreciate that you even put a little detail into what exactly that 'something' is.

I would appreciate it if you could acknowledge that nothing "afterwards" could happen with Hamas still in power.

Yes, I know you would say that, you have said that, like a bunch..

Because words, they mean things.

You seem to want to impress upon me that historical practice affirms the virtuousness of this reaction, okay. The reaction that you had appeared to adamantly assert as the only one that matters is 'Hamas is destroyed in Gaza'. I've been saying that I think there are some additional considerations that are worth discussing.

Yes. After, you know, Hamas is destroyed in Gaza.

At some point, I did say that I have higher expectations of Israel than I do of Hamas,

Those "higher expectations" always seem to come at the price of being able to wage war effectively.

Hamas is a terrorist organization pantomiming as a government

In what way is Hamas not an actual government? Please do tell.

However, I have the same expectations of the Palestinian people as I do of the Israeli people.

No, you clearly don't. Because you have not expressed a single responsibility for the Palestinian people. So you have, actually, zero expectations of the Palestinian people.

No I don't. Do you have me confused with someone else? I don't think Christianity should be the basis for any government policy, much less Israeli policy.

You expect Israel to turn the other cheek, and not take actions against people who are trying to murder them.

Okay, so did he support it in September? if not, when was the last time that he did, and what happened?

When was the last time the Palestinians behaved like they were willing to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors?

Are you saying that it would be immoral for Israel to go against the US' desires and 'have at it'?

I'm saying that Israel is already fighting a moral war with moral methods. But that's not enough for most countries, including the US, who would rather Israel not defend themselves at all.

I mean if they had opportunities then yeah, for instance I half remember that there was some amount of sabotage that the enslaved Jews

Almost all Jews were slated for extinction. What should they have done, walk slower into the gas chambers? 

Perhaps I can put it in a way that you can connect with: We just saw thousands of Hezbollah pagers blow up, we can crudely approximate what it must have taken to pull that off. The idea that the folks that pulled that off would choose to sit out an opportunity to drastically affect their circumstances, that is a coup in Iran, is almost inconceivable to me. I believe Israel would demand to be a part of it.

Unfortunately nobody is trying to affect regime change in Iran. And the whole project should not fall on Israel's shoulders.

[Oscar_Kipling]

So you think we should separate the consequences of the Hamas attack from the consequences of the Israeli response to the Hamas attack.

No. I am not going to do that. I'm so very tired of the world at large ignoring what the terrorists do and just want to talk about the Israeli response.

That is neither what I said nor what I meant.

I don't know why you insisted that we were having a discussion, we clearly aren't. You don't want to talk about the topic, you want to complain about the fact that I want to talk about it or that I'm not talking about it like you think I should.

Because you and you alone get to decide what words mean.

Well, either what you mean is different from the things you stated, or you are demonstrably wrong because you do not understand what the words 'nobody' and 'no one' mean. Since you seem to have a grasp of the English language, I chose the former...perhaps I was too generous in that, but I doubt it.

Hamas has to be destroyed first. That's step one.

Okay, I don't think we disagree here, per se. I believe that it matters how the destruction of Hamas is approached, and I think it matters what that 'destruction' entails- IOW I think there is stuff to think about and talk about. I think we discussed earlier, my assertion that killing every member of Hamas in Israel likely will not eliminate the organization itself, it will not eliminate the ideology and depending on how it is done it could plant the seeds for their resurgence. You seem to believe that it is wrong to consider what we want post-war to look like, much less make current decisions with that in mind.

I would appreciate it if you could acknowledge that nothing "afterwards" could happen with Hamas still in power.

 I have always acknowledged that Hamas needs to be removed from power and their ideology needs to be eradicated and the conditions that made that ideology attractive in the first place needs to be changed in order for there to be lasting peace. You seem to want me to say that the process must be stepwise in the sense that there should be no considerations about what we want to happen next when choosing how we enact the preceding step. I'm not going to do that because I don't believe that, I believe your sense of how discrete and isolated these 'steps' must be is overly simplistic.

Because words, they mean things.

In that case, Perhaps you can help me with a definition because it turns out that I don't know what the term 'universal generalization' means.

Yes. After, you know, Hamas is destroyed in Gaza.

Okay, we agree that that is what you've been saying.

Those "higher expectations" always seem to come at the price of being able to wage war effectively. 

You ever consider that you might think that this is what I'm 'always' saying because anything that isn't just parroting your own opinions back at you leads to the same set of conclusions?   

Anyway, yes, sometimes that is the price. Israel is currently making decisions that do not directly maximize killing every Hamas possible because as you pointed out they are being very moral. While it is safe to accuse me of wanting to do even more things that could lower that ceiling, I think that feeding back considerations of what comes after the war into decisions during the war can be an effective way of avoiding future wars...which IMO is way better than doing those future wars effectively and can be more useful in the long term even when it is less than ideal in the short term.

In what way is Hamas not an actual government? Please do tell.

Yeah, this is a case of me not saying what I meant. I actually meant that they are technically a government, but I think of them as more of a terrorist organization even though those things are not mutually exclusive. The 10/7 attacks displayed a willingness to engage in abject terrorism despite the predictable repercussions it would have on the people they were ostensibly supposed to represent and defend. I think they are better terrorists' than governors.

No, you clearly don't. Because you have not expressed a single responsibility for the Palestinian people. So you have, actually, zero expectations of the Palestinian people.

So what? I don't have to mention something that I wasn't talking about lest the topic that I was talking about be invalidated. I don't have talk about Palestinian responsibilities in order to talk about Israeli responsibilities any more than I have to bring up my nieces chores in order to talk to about my nephews chores. You don't like that I'm not having the discussion that you would prefer to be having, so you accuse me of not talking about the thing that I wasn't talking about. If what you care about is being right on this point then congrats, you've successfully pointed out that I'm not talking about a thing I wasn't talking about.

More generally, it appears you're upset because the world isn't talking about the things that you want to talk about as frequently and in the manner that you want them to,  and even when they do they are not drawing the conclusions that you think they should. I know this feeling, I have this feeling every day pretty much. I'm not critical of you for having it, but you are letting it guide this conversation. That is your prerogative, but its not very conducive to actually talking about anything but your grievances. I'm not here to feed your own takes back to you, there are plenty of other people here that can do that for you. 

You expect Israel to turn the other cheek, and not take actions against people who are trying to murder them.
 

quote me where I said that and I won't call you a liar.

When was the last time the Palestinians behaved like they were willing to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors?

I see we've found another thing that you don't actually want to discuss.

I'm saying that Israel is already fighting a moral war with moral methods. But that's not enough for most countries, including the US, who would rather Israel not defend themselves at all.

So if Israel is already doing what it wants to do and making the choices that it wants to make then what is the problem? When you said they were being held back from 'having at it', did you mean that criticizing their choices and actions constitutes holding them back? I have news that really shouldn't be news to you, when you follow your own ambitions, and make your own choices, other folks will criticize you for it...that is how freedom works. You do not get to march to the beat of your own drum and also expect that everyone else will feel as you do about it. Its sort of like how I'm not cowed by how apoplectic you get about the fact that I think my own thoughts about this war instead of the ones you approve of.

Almost all Jews were slated for extinction. What should they have done, walk slower into the gas chambers?

If they had it in them to do it, then yeah. Yes, harry the Nazis at every turn and in every way---put too much sugar in their coffee, clog the toilets, drop tools, spill stuff, give them the wrong names, write the wrong numbers on paperwork, act like you didn't understand their instructions the first time, and yes even slow walk your way to the gas chambers, fall a few times if you can. There is value in petite rebellions, especially if that is all you have the opportunity to do...and if you have the opportunity to build a first of its kind bomb, do that too, or join a military, or intelligence organization or help find homes for displaced Jews. Plenty of Jews did those things and more during WW2.

Unfortunately nobody is trying to affect regime change in Iran. And the whole project should not fall on Israel's shoulders.

You are the only person that is acting like I ever said that it should.

[Fenris]

Aaaand the entire leadership of Hizballah, including Nasrallah, are now dead. And the world is a better place for it.

[RabbiKnife]

I guess that Buy one get one free deal in the pagers was too good to be true

[Fenris]

I guess that Buy one get one free deal in the pagers was too good to be true

And the best part is that Hizbullah paid for those pagers. 

[Fenris]

If they had it in them to do it, then yeah. Yes, harry the Nazis at every turn and in every way---put too much sugar in their coffee, clog the toilets, drop tools, spill stuff, give them the wrong names, write the wrong numbers on paperwork, act like you didn't understand their instructions the first time, and yes even slow walk your way to the gas chambers, fall a few times if you can. There is value in petite rebellions, especially if that is all you have the opportunity to do...

This reminds me of an alternate history story I read once. The author might have been Harry Turtledove, I don't remember. In this alternate history, the Nazis defeated the allies and invaded India. Naturally they come in contact with Ghandi, who attempts passive resistance against them. Of course it fails spectacularly when the Nazis gun down the protestors and Ghandi ends up running for his life.

Passive resistance might work against an opponent with morals. It's a waste of time against mass murderers, and I think you have a lot of nerve to suggest that people who died by the millions in the gas chambers didn't "do enough" to satisfy your requirements on how victims should behave.

Again, I can't understand if you're trying to be offensive or just so clueless that you don't understand how what you're saying is offensive. 

edit to add: On this day in 1941, 33,771 Jews were brutally murdered by the Nazis at Babi Yar, a ravine in Kyiv.

[Fenris]

Iran fired 200 ballistic missiles at Israel and killed one Palestinian.

We are truly living in a time of miracles, the likes which have not been seen since the Exodus from Egypt.

[RabbiKnife]

Iran fired 200 ballistic missiles at Israel and killed one Palestinian.

We are truly living in a time of miracles, the likes which have not been seen since the Exodus from Egypt.

Praying for the safety of the nation of Israel and for the family of those murdered in the terrorist shooting attack at the bus station

[ProDeo]

Makes me wonder if Netanyahu finally gets the excuse he always wanted, destroy the nuclear facilities of Iran.

One of the things Trump did well, get out of that nuclear deal with Iran.

[RabbiKnife]

Fenris, my friend, may the High Holy Days in the next couple of weeks remind you — as always— of God’s love for you personally, for your family, and for the people of God throughout this earth.

Shalom shalom.

[Oscar_Kipling]

If they had it in them to do it, then yeah. Yes, harry the Nazis at every turn and in every way---put too much sugar in their coffee, clog the toilets, drop tools, spill stuff, give them the wrong names, write the wrong numbers on paperwork, act like you didn't understand their instructions the first time, and yes even slow walk your way to the gas chambers, fall a few times if you can. There is value in petite rebellions, especially if that is all you have the opportunity to do...

This reminds me of an alternate history story I read once. The author might have been Harry Turtledove, I don't remember. In this alternate history, the Nazis defeated the allies and invaded India. Naturally they come in contact with Ghandi, who attempts passive resistance against them. Of course it fails spectacularly when the Nazis gun down the protestors and Ghandi ends up running for his life.

Passive resistance might work against an opponent with morals. It's a waste of time against mass murderers, and I think you have a lot of nerve to suggest that people who died by the millions in the gas chambers didn't "do enough" to satisfy your requirements on how victims should behave.

Again, I can't understand if you're trying to be offensive or just so clueless that you don't understand how what you're saying is offensive. 

edit to add: On this day in 1941, 33,771 Jews were brutally murdered by the Nazis at Babi Yar, a ravine in Kyiv.

I see you've decided to ignore most of what i've said in order to talk about that time you read a short story...Well that and accuse me of saying "that people who died by the millions in the gas chambers didn't "do enough" to satisfy [my] requirements on how victims should behave." Which I obviously didn't, but I don't like my chances of getting you to admit that.

Still your hijinks are engaging in their own way. Fascinating, like trying to figure out how many Lilly pads there are in a pond by throwing pebbles in and watching the behavior of the ripples. Besides, I love tangents, so leaning into this will be pretty natural for me.

So, I just finished reading Harry Turtledove's "The Last Article", which appears to be the story you were referring to. Being who I am, obviously I have thoughts, but since I do not suspect they will mean much to you I'll try not to talk too much about the story.

The fictionalized Ghandi does seem to make a fatal mistake by not taking into account who the Nazis were and attempted to employ the same wholly unmodified strategy on the Nazis that he did with the English. Amusingly the ending of the story reveals that he absolutely knew who the Nazi's were, he knew why his strategy was doomed to fail, because it had failed previously, and he had already recognized that deploying the same strategy he had for the entire story could not work, but did it anyway, yet he is broken by this revelation of things that he already knew and believed, presumably because Turtledove wanted him to. Then at some point you read that story and thought "Say, that makes a lot of sense!"...I assure you, it doesn't.

Anyway. According to Wikipedia, pretty much every violent slave revolt in history ended in failure. Of course as Winston Churchill said when asked about the accuracy of Wikipedia "Wiki's aren't complete or objective, but tend to privilege the version of events of those who edit the articles.", truly a man ahead of his time. If we ignore Churchill and take it for granted that wikipedia is correct and accurate on this point, then we can conclude that if you are  enslaved you're probably going to stay that way whether your résistance is violent or not.

In the case of India, the independence movement that finally 'worked', the one marked by nonviolent resistance, took pretty much the entire first half of the 20th century to 'work'. I don't think it is a particularly hot take to say that it had at least as much to do with the waning power of the British empire that was greatly damaged and diminished by the fight with the Nazis as it did with the British looking inside themselves and finally realizing that they were actually moral blokes after all.  And that itself was really just a tiny fraction of the several hundred year history of the Indian people trying (often violently trying) and failing to extract themselves from European subjugation.

If one were to sample random instances of resistance over those centuries, they would most likely find failures, that is to say those instances did not conclude with the Europeans tucking tail and heading back home into the loving arms of their gross savory puddings. The implication being that if you didn't win, then your resistance was a waste of time, no matter what form it took. Or to put it in other words that you may actually understand, If a mass murderer is determined enough and competent enough at mass murdering then whatever action or inaction you employ in opposition will likely lead to you being murdered. So if we set aside any sniggles about employing the appropriate resistance strategy and tactics to the appropriate oppression scenarios, then what we are really talking about isn't whether the resistance was violent or nonviolent or whether the oppressors were moral or not, we are talking about outcomes, right?

An impervious chain of reasoning, We can safely conclude that if resistance does not end with toppling the oppressor then it is worth nothing to anyone. Every armed Jewish resistance in the ghettoes and extermination camps were suppressed and the Jewish resistors and often unrelated Jews were killed. Additionally many Jews that non-violently resisted the Nazis were killed just like the ones who didn't. They lost, they died, therefore their resistance was a waste of time. They may as well have just mindlessly sucked on a tailpipe themselves for all their effort was worth. Unless of course there are some alternative purposes for instances of resistance (both violent and nonviolent) whereby their success is measured in something outside of absolute annihilation of their foes. I can't seem to think of any, can you?