I'm suggesting that you don't make up fictional dialogue.
I am not denying that kids are dying in this war. This has more to do with how Hamas are deliberately embedding themselves within civilians, preventing them from fleeing and using them as human shields than the IDF deciding to deliberately murder children. I am not aware of any other armed forces going even remotely to the same lengths to warn civilians as the IDF. They even invented the practice of roof-knocking, which Palestinians trust so much that they are standing within meters of a marked building in order to film its destruction.
Your second link does not support your claim that Israel said they are only killing Hamas.
This has more to do with how Hamas are deliberately embedding themselves within civilians
"Deliberately"?
Can you lay out for me what you think members of Hamas should do in order to avoid being "embedded" in this way? Should they, for example, abandon their residences as individuals and go to live somewhere else where there are no people, so they can be clearly identified as enemy combatants, so that Israel won't be tempted into destroying the entire apartment building where is their private residence?
Would this also have applied to, for example, Jewish resistance fighters during the holocaust? Would it be reasonable to say that someone in the Warsaw ghetto who has weapons is "embedded" in the civilian population there, and shares some responsibility if innocent people in the ghetto are killed during the uprising?
preventing them from fleeing
Citation?
I actually think Hamas is a deeply corrupt and violent organization; most bad things that someone would say about them, I probably would agree with. Trying to use that as some kind of excuse for "and that's why it's their fault that Israel is indiscriminately bombing, shooting, and starving an entire civilian population even the most well-armed of which pose a very minor threat to them" isn't something I'll agree with.
Should I keep going? I can, if you want to try to paint the idea that the IDF is deliberately killing children as in any way untrue or exaggerated.
I am not aware of any other armed forces going even remotely to the same lengths to warn civilians as the IDF
Did you read the Foreign Affairs article I linked to? It goes into quite a bit of detail about this claim from a dispassionate and evidence based perspective.
which Palestinians trust so much that they are standing within meters of a marked building
Can you give some instances? E.g. link to a video where Palestinians are standing calmly next to a building which is being attacked by the IDF, trusting that they won't be harmed?
Your second link does not support your claim that Israel said they are only killing Hamas.
They said civilian casualties are very very low. I interpret that as meaning that most of the thousands of dead people are Hamas fighters. No?
What would be your assessment of the number of people killed in the fighting and what amount of them are Hamas vs innocent men vs innocent women or children? Just trying to get a frame of reference of what you think / assert is happening.
Should they, for example, abandon their residences as individuals
That's not the issue. Hamas terrorists are doing far more than just going home in the evening to their families. Read this academic paper on Hamas' use of human shields. It's highly accessible, yet in-depth:
I seriously implore you to actually read it and not just dismiss it, because you dislike the title or because I'm the one recommending it to you.
Would this also have applied to, for example, Jewish resistance fighters during the holocaust?
Originally, I was prepared to write a lengthy reply to each of your points, but I'll not waste my time any further with someone who has the sheer audacity of equating Hamas terrorists with Warsaw Ghetto resistance fighters. How dare you smear the legacy of these people in such a shameful way!
I seriously implore you to actually read it and not just dismiss it
Okay, sure. I read a good bit of it. From p. 159:
"Since Hamas’ rule over the Gaza Strip is not legitimised by the UN, and since Hamas is not recognised by the international community as the political representative of the Palestinian people, its diplomatic activities are usually carried out by third party states and pro-Palestinian organisations. These entities will often present 'proof' of alleged war crimes to attack Israel in the international arena.
"The most prominent example of this is the Goldstone Report. This report sheds light on the diplomatic context of the practice of human shields: about 1,400 Gazans and 13 Israelis were killed in the Gaza War. A UN fact-finding mission headed by Judge Richard Goldstone was established in April 2009 following the war, and published its 574-page report in September 2009. The report called for both parties, Hamas and Israel, to investigate their own actions and accused both of deliberately targeting civilians. However, before expanding its mandate to investigate both parties’ actions, the preliminary purpose of the commission was to investigate only Israel’s alleged war crimes against Palestinians.
"The final report criticised Israel harshly for attacking civilians and civilian facilities. It disputed Israel’s claim that the Gaza War was initiated as a response to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, claiming that, at least in part, the war was targeted against the 'people of Gaza as a whole.'
"The report also stated that there was evidence that Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity by deliberately launching rockets and firing mortars into Israel, calculated to intentionally kill civilians and damage civilian structures. The report accused Palestinian armed groups of causing psychological trauma to the civilians within the range of the rockets. It also concluded that killings and abuses of members of the Fatah political movement amounted to a 'serious violation of human rights.' However, the mission found no evidence of Palestinian armed groups placing civilians in areas where attacks were being launched, or engaging in combat in civilian dress, or using a mosque for military purposes or to shield military activities. This statement contrasted with both Israeli and international media reports that Hamas fighters wore civilian clothes and concealed their weapons.
"Despite placing the blame on both sides, the mission de facto rejected Israel’s claims that the IDF had only attacked Hamas’ targets, and that civilian casualties were caused mainly due to Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields. This was a severe diplomatic blow to Israel. In fact, the international community barely distinguished between the activities of a terror organisation and those a sovereign state. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights endorsed the report and supported the call for Israel and Hamas to investigate and prosecute those who committed war crimes. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged “credible” investigations by both sides into the conduct of the Gaza conflict 'without delay.' The European Parliament passed a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report in March 2010. The resolution called on the bloc’s member states to 'publicly demand the implementation of [the report’s] recommendations and accountability for all violations of international law, including alleged war crimes.' These declarations, as well as others, demonstrate Hamas’ triumph in controlling the narrative. Hamas’ ability to control the narrative limits Israel’s strategic choices."
I had some commentary on this, but changed my mind and deleted it. I think it pretty much speaks for itself.
the sheer audacity of equating Hamas terrorists with Warsaw Ghetto resistance fighters
I had a feeling you wouldn't at all like that comparison.
I also had a feeling you wouldn't want to respond in detail to the other stuff I was saying, or answer questions... because what can you say?
Allied bombings killed more German civilians in WW2 than German bombings killed Allied civilians. Does this mean that the Allies were morally inferior to the Nazis on the Western front?
Have you considered that there is more to this than just numbers, namely intent?
Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.
If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?
Heh. Your strategy of simply announcing that you're offended and you refuse to continue to talk along a couple of the lines of discussion, has worked. Now with no transition away from "Hamas is definitely using human shields" "Here's a UN report saying they're not" and similar lines that weren't going how you wanted them to, we're into a whole new line of argument.
But sure.
The Jews were engaged in a life or death struggle
Absolutely true.
with the Arabs of Palestine
Er... not entirely true, at the outset, but it became true over time, yes.
mostly because of the choice of the latter
?
Can you explain a little more what was their choice here that caused the struggle to take place?
Selected quotes of one leader are not representative of an entire spectrum of parties and factions that equally saw themselves as “Zionist.”
Absolutely true. Do you mind if I go back through things you sent me and find some times when something a Hamas leader (and not even necessarily the founder of Hamas), was picked out as representative of the motives of Hamas as a whole?
It's starting to feel like this is just nitpicking over individual details and getting lost in the details... somewhere far far away from thousands upon thousands of dead children, and safely in semantics, where we can go back and forth, safe in our climate controlled homes.
But sure, I'm happy to continue for a little while at least.
When is the bigotry, intolerance, ignorance and violence of the Arab world going to become PC for the left to examine honestly and completely?
I had a pretty extensive argument not long ago with someone who was trying to downplay Hamas's atrocities on October 7th, and sent them some documents demonstrating otherwise.
The IDF's atrocities and Hamas's atrocities do not exist in some weird zero-sum universe where only one can be true, and to affirm one means to deny the other. Anyone who's paying attention to the reality will see some bigotry, intolerance, and violence in the Arab world.
How many countries in the world were not born of historical “sin” of some sort or other?
Every family has some murderers in its history. Does that mean we shouldn't prosecute murder when it happens in the present?
When are we going to stop talking ancient history?
I started out talking about dead civilians in the last 6 months, and going forward this month and next. I only brought up Ben-Gurion's thoughts on the intent behind Israel's foundation and the assignation of "blame" if you want to call it that, because you wanted to stop talking about the present day atrocities and start talking about intent, instead, and I thought his viewpoint was relevant (for example how an innocent Arab family who lost their home last month or this month might reasonably react.)
Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians have to see each other as fellow human beings entitled to equal respect, rights and protections.
Absolutely. This I 100% agree with. This is, pretty much, the core of what I think would need to happen to stop the continued bloodshed and suffering by innocent people in both countries.
Related question.
"The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights endorsed the report and supported the call for Israel and Hamas to investigate and prosecute those who committed war crimes. ... The resolution called on the bloc’s member states to 'publicly demand the implementation of [the report’s] recommendations and accountability for all violations of international law, including alleged war crimes.' These declarations, as well as others, demonstrate Hamas’ triumph in controlling the narrative. Hamas’ ability to control the narrative limits Israel’s strategic choices."
Would it be fair to say you agree with that? You sent it to me.
Still looking for moral high ground? Try it without killing and justifying it. The old proverb an eye for an eye shouldn't be that hard to grasp.
And on that note: Why must comparisons always fall back on WW2. The first and second world wars mark the point where humanity evolved to its most savage. If one had honor before that they wouldn't hide behind drones, rockets, and bombs to do the dirty work. We are all in this brutal society and I for one choose to respect life, no matter what the cause. So sad that you think there is a drop of morality to be squeezed out todays plight. Minimize damage and human casualty, that is all.
I actually think Hamas is a deeply corrupt and violent organization; most bad things that someone would say about them, I probably would agree with. Trying to use that as some kind of excuse...
And so on.
I do understand that UN reports and videos of dying children and straight questions which you have no real good way to answer are sorta difficult to argue against, which creates a certain pressure to pretend that I'm saying something which is the exact opposite of what I'm actually saying.
For your future attempts to falsely reframe the discussion and cancel out reasonable questions without admitting defeat, may I suggest:
You took that thing you quoted WAY out of context
This 90-minute Youtube video contains all the answers and I refuse to talk further until you watch it
How dare you say those bad things happened when (massive list of bad things Hamas has done dating back to the 1980s)
"Blocked"
All tried and true alternatives to "How dare you say that thing you said, I refuse to talk any further, I'm offended now" (which is of course itself an old staple, and with good reason).
Dude, the fact stands that Isreal is killing children at an alarming rate. I'm glad everytime I hear someone put words out there to express this. Don't play the Semantics game. This stuff needs to be said, over and over. Free speech and all.
Not that this wouldn't be a grotesque crime against humanity either way, but I'd be very interested to know what they consider "military age".
US "anti-terrorism" forces in the middle east set it as low as 14 and I wouldn't expect the IDF to be LESS monstrous than the US military..
One former Mossad official even said that all Gazan children older than 4 are "involved" and "Hamas supporters" and therefore deserve to be starved to death 🤬
As of today they’re also expanding deportations. If you are caught using banned slogans on social media such as from the river to the sea and you’re a foreigner you will get deported for “praising terrorism”. Some politicians argue that even as much as a like will be enough for the authorities to throw you out of the country.
And if you have double citizenship and you got your German one as of this year, they will be able to cancel your citizenship if you’re ever convicted of questioning Israel’s right to exist.
Nope, not true. Stop spreading misinformation just because you want to get public praise.
You will not automatically get deported, but it will be made easier to deport foreigners who are praising terrorism. There’s a big difference. You always have legal recourse against this.
That’s important because the phrase “from the river to the sea” is not illegal praise of terrorism in Germany, even if you may have heard so from your equally misinformed bubble. While its use shows that the person saying has a big problem with accepting that a complex situation will certainly not be reflected in a catchy sentence, and that it may be time for that person to just excuse them from a discussion they are very likely not a part of, it is not illegal.
Why? Because courts will have to make the decision whether its use in a specific context was illegal, and more often than not it won’t be.
You are very naive if you think that the German authorities would not bend or abuse such laws. If you’re a white German and as such not a victim of the systemic racism prevalent in the institutions of pretty much all European countries, you can’t understand this. Good for you but you’re incredibly privileged to an extent that you don’t seem to grasp based on your reply.
Here’s something for you to read. Took me literally a few minutes to put all of this together. There’s so much more. Most of Europe is slowly sliding into fascism and you somehow believe I am in a „victim pit“ by pointing that out? It always begins with the most vulnerable people. And then as a leftist suddenly you’re a „terrorist“ for criticizing the government and off you go.
Yeah so you didn’t read a single article. You didn’t even bother to read the headlines that I copy & pasted for you. How are Germany, Italy, Greece in Eastern Europe? more than half of the articles are about them.
Apart from that I don’t see how your ad hominem attacks are relevant or productive for having this conversation.
Well no. Your premise was anecdotal experience. Your articles are not relevant. Funny how you're annoyed at someone else's ad hominem, yet yours is totally valid? Ze victim complex runz deep.
Premise: European authorities will bend or abuse existing laws.
Articles from credible sources: provide evidence for European authorities bending or abusing or simply ignoring existing laws.
This posters conclusion: I don’t actually know. Anyway I’m just leaving this here for anyone unfortunate enough to follow this conversation until this point. No idea what else to do with trolls like this 🤷♂️
Similarly in Scandinavia. Friends, who live in Sweden, told me about multiple people claiming how Sweden is turning more fascist, compared to previous years.
In Germany, you can't currently deport anyone just for expressing extremist views. However, recently there were demonstrations in Hamburg where about 1,000 people marched to advocate for a caliphate and Sharia law in Germany, which led to a public debate about exactly this. However, this isn't about Palestine but about anti-constitutional extremism. Some state interior ministers are now advocating to explicitly outlaw this kind of islamist extremism, potentially paving the way for easier deportations for those advocating for a caliphate in Germany. Here's a german article on the topic.
the phrase “from the river to the sea” is not illegal praise of terrorism in Germany, even if you may have heard so from your equally misinformed bubble
I've seen people (including jews) getting fined for hate speech for an instagram story containing just "from the river to the sea palestine will be free"
From now on, that will also come with a deportation.
The highly esteemed german courts will have the freedom to decide what fits into which context. A social media like will land you in court. Saying that hamas committed terrorist acts but also that it is a resistance movement spawned out of the oppression will also land you in a court because any nuanced discussion is too much for the german intellect and instantly means "pRaIsInG tErRoRiSm".
I can't wait to see all the neolibs that clapped when the greens and the social democrats passed these laws, when the AfD gets in power here (which will definitely happen sooner or later, following the EU wide far right movements) and when they decide to reinterpret those "contexts" their highly esteemed german courts like to discuss so much. I'm sure this draconian stuff won't backfire. But hell, who cares, it's only Ausländer getting the short end of the stick anyway.
So the blog post just states that the phrase isn't illegal to use but the state still decides to "investigate" its use often by using force, arrests, and by searching peoples' homes, confiscating their electronic devices and so on. It's good to hear that the "Verfassungsblog" argues that its use isn't generally illegal, but also states that the current police proceedings are going to great extent to intimidate people
You call them police proceedings, but it’s the public prosecutor’s office (Staatsanwaltschaft) that is calling the shots. Regardless, the article also states that two of the highest courts called the Verwaltungsgerichte have decided that the phrase isn’t illegal per se.
Of course it is illegal in the context of glorifying Hamas terrorism, as it should be. That also puts a responsibility on organisers of protests to make sure that they distance themselves from people who are ambiguous in their distancing from hamas, that’s a positive thing in my opinion.
Historically, there has been consensus that Fox News is generally reliable for news coverage on topics other than politics and science. However, many editors expressed concerns about the reliability of Fox News for any topic in a 2023 RFC. No formal consensus was reached on the matter, though. See also: Fox News (politics and science), Fox News (talk shows).
Thier actual news reporting is basically fine. It's the other 90% of their content that's all talking heads that blatantly lies about everything where the problems come in.
I have a relative that only watched the channel. When the actual news segments come it's like a wave of fresh air. But then it very quickly changes to the talking heads bullshit.
A deal has been on the table for weeks now. A deal that would've released all the hostages and would've caused zero Palestinian deaths. I guess to the average Israeli one of their citizens goes for at least 50 Palestinians though.
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