You keep calling it “pay for slay” as if repeating a slogan turns it into fact. But what you’re describing isn’t justice—it’s guilt by category. You’re not assessing individual cases, you’re labeling all Palestinian prisoners as terrorists, and assuming any support for them equals blood money. That’s not law. That’s McCarthyism wrapped in nationalist packaging.
If support for prisoners automatically signals terrorism, then every country in history that’s endured occupation—France under the Nazis, Algeria under the French, South Africa under apartheid—was a terrorist state for honoring its political detainees. Nelson Mandela would’ve been branded a “welfare case for slaying whites” by your logic.
Once again, leaving out the important details.
The category isn't "prisoners". It's "prisoners who engaged in terrorism."
The common criminals get no such payments. Nobody's demanding their release.
As for comparison to those other cases--you also need to establish that the act was terrorism. (And Nelson Mandela was a terrorist.)
And let’s talk about your so-called “simple test”: “If they target civilians, they’re terrorists. If they target military, they’re freedom fighters.” You know who doesn’t pass that test? Israel. Over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in this war, the majority civilians—including journalists, medics, children, aid workers, and thousands buried alive in collapsed homes. If you really believed in that metric, you wouldn’t be defending those numbers—you’d be investigating them.
You keep repeating that as if it's somehow evidence.
Two terms: "Target" and "Civilians".
Target: What is the weapon intended to destroy? Notably,
not what else is within the blast zone, or what else is hit by secondary effects (such as buildings falling into the void left by a collapsed tunnel).
Civilians: You keep enumerating categories as if they are are exclusive with being combatants--but you are not giving any reason to for this.
As for "thousands buried alive". Hamas claimed 10,000 buried in the rubble. They claimed it for a long time. Nobody added to the list? Nobody dug out of the rubble and thus removed from the list? And Hamas didn't specify "collapsed homes", just buried. To the extent the claim makes sense the most logical explanation is that they are Hamas people who died in the tunnels. And we have no names--individuals without names are likely combatants. (Compare this to the Twin Towers. 10,000 missing in the collapse--but in the end 2,700 dead. That's the reality of mass disaster situations--without any malice the count is going to start out too high and drop over time as they sort out that multiple missing person reports are the same individual.)
You also say “there’s no cycle—just terrorists choosing violence.” That’s not analysis. That’s amnesia. The pattern of blockade, dispossession, settlement expansion, and statelessness isn’t theoretical. It’s documented. And when people resist that—violently or not—you label it barbarism and act shocked when the occupation doesn’t stay quiet.
If it were a cycle you would see a timing pattern. Instead you see mounting attacks followed by an Israeli hammering, then fairly quiet for a quite variable period of time. Why the relationship between attacks and hammering and no relationship between hammering and attacks?
And when I cite diplomacy—Oslo, recognition of Israel, renunciation of terror—you hand-wave it all away as a “sham.” Yet somehow, every broken promise by Israel—the settlements, the home demolitions, the indefinite delay of final status talks—is never a problem. The only “peace” you seem to recognize is one where the other side surrenders unconditionally and then thanks you for it.
We have one key bit from the talks: Arafat walked when faced with an offer good enough that a counter-offer might be accepted. Nothing else was mean to be more than temporary. And they have specifically spoken of diplomacy being a sham.
You say I’ve offered “no solution.” But what you really mean is: “I’ve offered no solution where one side keeps all the land, all the power, and none of the accountability.” That’s not peace. That’s conquest in slow motion.
You have offered no solution, period.
And your argument that Palestinians are violent because they get paid is a cartoon. People don’t crawl through rubble, risk assassination, or bury their children for a paycheck. That’s not how oppression works. That’s not how resistance works. That’s how propaganda works—when you need to explain away rage without acknowledging its cause.
Calling it a cartoon doesn't make it so. You want to survive in Gaza, you do what Hamas wants. Even if that puts you at risk.
You say “I look at actions.” Fine. Then look. At the blockaded borders. The bulldozed homes. The checkpoints. The targeted medics. The murdered children. The refusal to define borders or allow a state. Look at the imbalance of power, weapons, and rights—and then ask yourself: who’s more afraid, and who’s more in control?
Blockaded borders--what do you expect in war?
Bulldozed homes--you realize why Israel bulldozed homes? Because the family got a big payout because a family member engaged in a suicide attack. A direct effort to counter the people engaging in suicide attacks to provide for their family.
Checkpoints--how is that illegal? I've been through quite a few "checkpoints". One even officially named a checkpoint. And of all the checkpoints I've been through the only times I've felt anything was bad about how it was handled was here in the US. Once when were directed through the foreigner line at immigration (bunch of people in citizen/resident line, nobody in the foreigner line, they grabbed a bunch of us and directed us to the empty stations) and a few times from TSA. (And whatever mystery leads to my wife's haraSSSSment on flights heading to the US.) (And I'm not counting the number of times officials basically phoned it in--mostly cases where they already had enough to go on to put us in the very low threat category.)
Targeted medics--you haven't established that they weren't targets.
Murdered children--once again, you need to establish the facts.
Define borders--agreed, but understandable. The real issue is the very existence of Israel, not it's borders. To define borders would cause internal discontent without providing any benefit. Nor are there truly any borders to refer to as we simply have armistice lines.
Allow a state--they'll allow a demilitarized state.
Imbalance--now we get to the problem. You think that the side with the power is automatically the side in the wrong.
