Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Loren Pechtel]

Dude! Why the heck did you insert the "legitimate" property into the exchange? Where the heck am I supposed to be "pretending" Hamas is legitimate?!? Of course Hamas isn't legitimate, duh!!! So what?!? Where the heck is the previous poster suggesting she meant to restrict her scenario to legitimate governments?!?
...

It appears you were initially supportive of classifying Hamas as a government entity, & I clarified that it is widely recognized as a terrorist organization. It's not complicated. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And? The two categories are not mutually exclusive. The Iranian regime is both a government and a terrorist organization. So's the North Korean regime. So's the Syrian regime. So's the Afghan regime. So's ISIS.

North Korea?? They're a rogue nation but how much terror do they do??? Their export is simply crime. (Drug smuggling, ransomware etc.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why on earth would you think he doesn't think that?

International aid to Palestinians - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, aid to Palestinians totaled over $40 billion between 1994 and 2020."

That's what the international community was willing to spend before the terrorists were taken down; why the heck wouldn't we do it again once the aid is finally going to making a peaceful and prosperous Palestine?

1) An appreciable portion of that actually went to the terrorists.

2) Why should we expect a different result than last time? (Much of the money going to the top guy's pockets and to terror. And we have things like the EU repeatedly funding buildings whose true purpose is to be destroyed by Israel.)

 

[ZiprHead]

How in the world could they possibly do what Hamas doesn't want them to do? If you could somehow actually remove Hamas from the picture, sure, but that's not going to happen. Israel can't hope to actually get Hamas, they're just going for command and infrastructure. It will take Hamas years to rebuild to the point of attacking again but they won't be gone and their grip on Gaza won't change.

Israel has the opportunity to establish a collaborative and progressive relationship with the Palestinian people, similar to how the United States engaged with Japan post-World War II. By fostering mutual understanding and working together, Israel and the Palestinians can create a peaceful environment. This approach can also be instrumental in jointly addressing and mitigating the influence of extremist groups like Hamas, benefiting both communities.

Sorry, no. Not anymore.

 

[ZiprHead]

The term oppression is used to indicate an exercise of unjust and abusive power or authority by one person or group over another.

Yes. That is what it means in common usage. That is what I mean by it. That is what the Israelis and the Palestinians have been doing to each other for the last seventy-five years. This is not rocket science.

I agree, it is not rocket science - it is hyperbolic propaganda. "The Palestinians" as a group cannot possibly be reasonably judged to have oppressed anyone but themselves for the last 75 years. Even by your idiosyncratic usage, Palestinians in the West Bank have not oppressed Israel in the last 10 years or more.

According to the State Department, West-Bank Palestinians murdered twelve Israeli civilians in terror attacks in Israel in 2022 alone; several more were wounded. I'm sure you can define "as a group" in some way that lets you claim those don't count, but (a) the Palestinian Authority isn't taking effective action to prevent attacks and is in fact continuing to pay terrorists' families and imprisoned terrorists; and (b) plenty of Israelis haven't ever oppressed Palestinians and plenty of Afrikaaners never oppressed black South Africans, but you didn't object to my describing the Israelis and the Afrikaaners as oppressing their societies' respective victims on account of "as a group" quibbling. People speak in generalities because it saves time; we expect one another to recognize that it's an approximation.

Israeli settler attacks on West Bank Palestinians have escalated since Oct. 7, UN says

QUSRA, West Bank (AP) — When Israeli warplanes swooped over the Gaza Strip following Hamas militants’ deadly attack on southern Israel, Palestinians say a different kind of war took hold in the occupied West Bank.

Overnight, the territory was closed off. Towns were raided, curfews imposed, teenagers arrested, detainees beaten, and villages stormed by Jewish vigilantes.

With the world’s attention on Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, the violence of war has also erupted in the West Bank. Israeli settler attacks have surged at an unprecedented rate, according to the United Nations. The escalation has spread fear, deepened despair, and robbed Palestinians of their livelihoods, their homes and, in some cases, their lives.

“Our lives are hell,” said Sabri Boum, a 52-year-old farmer who fortified his windows with metal grills last week to protect his children from settlers he said threw stun grenades in Qaryout, a northern village. “It’s like I’m in a prison.”

In six weeks, settlers have killed nine Palestinians, said Palestinian health authorities. They’ve destroyed 3,000-plus olive trees during the crucial harvest season, said Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Daghlas, wiping out what for some were inheritances passed through generations. And they’ve harassed herding communities, forcing over 900 people to abandon 15 hamlets they long called home, the U.N. said.

When asked about settler attacks, the Israeli army said only that it aims to defuse conflict and troops “are required to act” if Israel citizens violate the law. The army didn’t respond to requests for comment on specific incidents.

 

[Arctish]

C. This brings us to "unjust". Why are you making an issue of whether I am appealing to emotion? Don't you use words to appeal to emotions?

I often do. But I don't create eccentric definitions for words to make my arguments more emotionally resonant at the cost of being accurate.

Excuse me?!? Where the bejesus did you see me "create eccentric definitions for words"?!? I have systematically stuck strictly to the definition of oppression that you posted upthread. If you've now decided the definition is eccentric, that's on you.

The definition I posted upthread? You mean where I said "The term oppression is used to indicate an exercise of unjust and abusive power or authority by one person or group over another. It is not used to indicate mutual hostilities between parties."

Or do you mean the one in the link to the Cambridge dictionary which defines it as "a situation in which people are governed in an unfair and cruel way and prevented from having opportunities and freedom"

Both definitions I provided refer to an exercise of institutional power by one person or group over another, not just people fighting over something.

I asked you "What definition of the term 'oppression' do you use, and how do you decide who is oppressing whom?" You haven't given me an answer except to say you were using common definitions. A quick Google search yields several common definitions including
-prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control
-the state of being subject to unjust treatment or control.
-historical and organized patterns of mistreatment
-a combination of prejudice and institutional power that creates a system that regularly and severely discriminates against some groups
-when a person or group in a position of power controls the less powerful in cruel and unfair ways
-Unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power especially by the imposition of burdens
-oppression entails a state of asymmetric power relations characterized by domination, subordination, and resistance, where the dominating persons or groups exercise their power by restricting access to material resources and by implanting in the subordinated persons or groups fear or self-deprecating views about themselves…. Oppression, then, is a series of asymmetric power relations between individuals, genders, classes, communities, nations, and states.

The common definitions of oppression incorporate the concept of a more powerful group imposing unfair restrictions on a less powerful group. It does not describe the condition of mutual hostilities between groups, which is why I said you are using an eccentric definition. And it appears to me you are using the term as an appeal to emotion. You want to argue that Palestinians are oppressing Israelis even though that has never happened in the modern State of Israel.

What definition of oppression are you using, and how do you determine who is oppressing whom?

Whether what Palestinians have done was unjust is a moral question. All moral arguments are appeals to emotion. "Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions". Do you disagree with Hume about that -- do you think you know a way to tell right from wrong without applying your emotional moral sense? Or do you have a general objection to moral arguments -- are you suggesting we should decide what people should do without consideration of morality? Or do you perhaps disagree with my moral claims? Do you disagree that raping is unjust? Do you disagree that kidnapping noncombatants is unjust? Do you disagree that targeting noncombatants for death or grievous bodily harm is unjust?

Is there anyone here who thinks what Hamas has done was morally righteous? I certainly don't.

I have no idea where you got the idea I might disagree with Hume,

I told you where: I got it from the fact that you accused me of "an appeal to emotion".

Believing you are making an appeal to emotion means I disagree that reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions?

or that I think kidnapping and raping is justified, or anything of the sort.

Are you unfamiliar with how logical argument works? I was doing a case analysis -- I was systematically going through all the possibilities for why you could reject the deduction that Palestinian behavior satisfies the definition of "oppression" you posted. I did not suspect you think kidnapping and raping is justified -- it seems obvious that your error is elsewhere -- but I included that possibility for the sake of completeness.

D. That leaves us with abuse. "1. the improper use of something. 2. cruel and violent treatment of a person or animal." Take your pick. That what Palestinians did to Israelis was cruel and violent is a plain fact. See A. Whether it was improper use of their power is a moral question. See C. I claim the attackers used their power improperly. Do you disagree?

Assuming your moral judgments on the above questions are not psychopathic, we should now be in agreement that the Palestinians and Israelis are in a two-way mutual-oppression relation, going by your definition of "oppression"...

That is not my definition of oppression.

Then why did you post it? Post #1786. "The term oppression is used to indicate an exercise of unjust and abusive power or authority by one person or group over another."

My definition aligns with the one in the Cambridge dictionary. What dictionary are you using?

I'm not using a dictionary;

Ah.

I think I see the problem.

If you want to talk about what oppression is, and what it is not, please post the definition you are using. If it can be found in a dictionary, even better.

I'm using the definition you posted and I accepted as fitting common usage. Why would I want to go dictionary shopping with you when the technicalities of whether "oppression" is the right word are immaterial to the fundamental issue: the cycle of revenge the Israelis and Palestinians are caught in is deeply misrepresented by equating it with Afrikaaners mistreating black South Africans without provocation.

Afrikaaners oppressed black South Africans. They developed and utilized an asymmetric power relation characterized by domination and subordination, with the utterly predictable resistance in response to their aggression. The Afrikaaners exercised their power by forcibly removing black South Africans from their communities, seizing their property, both private and communal, forcing them into containment areas ( i.e. ghettoes), and not allowing them equal rights or full citizenship under their government.

Zionists did the same to non-Jewish Palestinians inside the 1948 and 1967 borders, and continue to do the same to the ones living in the Occupied Territories. Even those who are considered citizens of the State of Israel do not enjoy the same rights and privileges, or the same amount of government support and subsidies, as Jewish Israelis.

In fact, Israel's Supreme Court rejected a petition to allow Israelis to identify as Israeli on their national ID cards because it would endanger Israel's founding principle: To be a Jewish state for the Jewish people. IOW, discrimination and racial/religious bias is foundational to the State of Israel. The obvious similarities to apartheid is what the comparison of Israelis and Afrikaaners is based upon.

 

[lpetrich]

UN warns Gaza is now ‘uninhabitable’ as war continues | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian

The UN humanitarian chief has described Gaza as “uninhabitable” three months into Israel’s war with Hamas, warning that famine was looming and a public health disaster unfolding.

In a grim assessment of the devastating impact of Israel’s military response to the horrific Hamas attacks on 7 October, Martin Griffiths said that Gaza’s 2.3 million people face “daily threats to their very existence” while the world just watches.

He said tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured, families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet and areas where Palestinians were told to relocate have been bombed.

Mark Pocan on X: "Hey @AIPAC, ..."/ X

Hey @AIPAC, how come a leader of Hamas can be strategically taken out in Beirut by a drone, but Gaza is in rubble? And now famine threatening?

Can you say “collective punishment” yet to the 22,000 dead’s families and friends?

PS Use that campaign cash to buy a conscience.

 

[Arctish]

What the Afrikaaners did to the black South Africans wasn't an outrage merely because they used their "authority" unjustly. It was an outrage because they used their power unjustly. People who equate Israelis with Afrikaaners are trying to misrepresent the two-way relation of the current conflict as a one-way relation such as the one in apartheid South Africa. It's disinformation, intellectually dishonesty, cheap propaganda -- regardless of what clauses they include or exclude from their definition of "oppression".

Apartheid is a government-enforced system of segregation and discrimination. Classification of citizens into categories that determine their treatment under the law is a basic feature. So is forcing people to live where the state dictates they must live.

Israel fits the description of an apartheid state, which is why people call it one.

Who are you talking about, Israeli Arabs or Palestinians? Israeli Arabs have the vote and civil rights, unlike apartheid-era black South Africans.

Israelis are categorized by their government into discrete groups, the rights of which are not equal. You can talk all you like about the civil rights of non-Jews in Israel, the Israeli version of their Supreme Court has affirmed that the State of Israel exists for the benefit of Jews alone and that it can, and indeed should, discriminate among its citizens.

The Palestinians aren't citizens; they're enemy aliens. Did Allied treatment of Germans in occupied parts of 1945 Germany make America, France and Britain "apartheid states"? The people who call Israel an "apartheid state" are in effect demanding that Israel be at peace with Palestine while simultaneously Palestine is at war with Israel.

You are switching between talking about Israeli citizens and people who are not citizens. You might not see a difference between them, but in matters of international law and domestic policy, the difference is huge.

People who are citizens of a country that enforces policies characteristic of an apartheid state might have rights, but they don't have equal rights.

People who live in territories under military occupation don't have the rights of citizens of the country that is carrying out the occupation (unless they are illegal settlers like the Zionists colonizing the West Bank) but they do have Rights under international law.

If the person(s) doing the raping, kidnapping, or murdering was some random asshole or I was not living under an unjust system that protected the abuser, then I would feel threatened, endangered, attacked, or something similar.

And a system where terrorists can prepare their crimes in peace, and cross the border to rape, kidnap and murder, and then go back to Gaza and parade their success and not be arrested by the local authorities is a just system, is it?

WTF are you talking about?

The only people here who have ever attempted to justify cross-border murders and rapes are Derec and Loren. Didn't you notice?

I'm talking about applying logic to your statements. Why do you keep mistaking cross-examination questions for accusations? The way this works is, opposing counsel asks you a question, you answer truthfully, and then he reasons from your answer to deduce a conclusion. The truthful answer to my question is "No, a system where terrorists can prepare their crimes in peace, and cross the border to rape, kidnap and murder, and then go back to Gaza and parade their success and not be arrested by the local authorities is NOT a just system." But a system where terrorists can prepare their crimes in peace, and cross the border to rape, kidnap and murder, and then go back to Gaza and parade their success and not be arrested by the local authorities is the system that Israelis were living under. Since you agree that that's an unjust system, your "if I was not living under an unjust system that protected the abuser" condition was not satisfied. Therefore your argument for why the Israelis weren't being oppressed fails.

What system are you talking about? Do you mean what happens between warring tribes/states? Or are you talking about terrorism in general?

The way you use the words 'oppression' and 'oppressed' makes it sound like the Jewish Resistance in the 1940s oppressed Nazis.

What made the October attacks inside Israel terrorism and not a military action in wartime was that non-combatants were targeted. The Israeli attacks in Gaza in May that killed non-combatants doesn't quite meet the definition of terrorism since the target was apparently military, although it would definitely be terrorism if the Israelis could have hit their target without killing so many civilians but wanted to 'send a message'.

Warring states do not oppress each other.

Of course they do, going by your own definition. Show me any war that didn't have unjust and abusive exercises of power perpetrated by both sides.

But have it your way. Assuming warring states do not oppress each other, that immediately settles the oppression issue and the apartheid issue -- Israel cannot be oppressing the Palestinians because the Israelis and Palestinians are at war.

Hold your horses.

Israel and the PA are not at war. Israel is at war with Hamas, because Israel has recognized Hamas as the de facto government in Gaza. The West Bank remains under the (very limited) governmental authority of the PA, which is currently led by Abbas and the Fatah faction of the PLO.

Neither the PA nor Hamas abuses their governmental power over Israelis because they don't have any.

The Afrikaaners and the black South Africans were not at war. If the Palestinians want their accusations of oppression to have any truth they need to sign a peace treaty.

They did.

Look up the Oslo Accords sometime. Check out the signatures at the bottom.

Check out the terms of the agreement. That is not a peace treaty. That is a ceasefire.

Then look up the peace process in the 1990s and see just how far along things went before Rabin was murdered.

And then check out the current peace offers Abbas and the PA have been working on.

Yes, Rabin was the best hope for peace and the guy who murdered him deserves a special place in purgatory whenever his life sentence ends. And good for Abbas and the PA for trying to resurrect the process. And shame on Hamas for disrupting them. But working toward a peace treaty is not the same as reaching one.

Governments, especially the ones that have control over the lives of people they do not recognize as citizens or full members of society, can be very oppressive.

Hamas had total control over the lives of the people they raped, kidnapped and murdered, and they certainly don't recognize them as citizens or full members of society.

Kidnappers usually have that kind of control unless their victims can escape. That doesn't make what they do something other than kidnapping.

Kidnapping doesn't need to be something other than kidnapping to be oppression. The categories are not mutually exclusive.

Oppression can include kidnapping. So can terrorism. And kidnapping can be neither terrorism nor oppression.

The terms are not interchangable.

 

[laughing dog]

Western Sahara is in basically the same situation as Gaza--no recognized government and controlled by an outside power.

And I note you didn't address Sudan.

Ahem “The genocide in Sudan is internal fighting” addresses it since the ICJ is for state vs state issues.

Saying this doesn't make it true.

In this instance, it is true.

I already pointed out South Sudan.

Yes you did. And, you are misinformed.

And what about Russian genocide in Ukraine?

What about it?
Ukraine vs Russia: Allegations of Genocide

Why isn't the ICJ doing anything?

The ICJ is a court with an ongoing case, not Rambo.

It is apparent from your responses you are the illusion that the ICJ seeks out cases and prosecutes defendants. It doesn’t which you would know if you bothered to find out. I did - it took 10 minutes.

So? They're not going to actually take action against Israel, either.

The ICJ issues rulings/findings but has no enforcement power. Do you mean that you believe there will be no ruling or that it will not find against Russia and not find against Israel?

 

[Gospel]

The USA and Allies could only do that after the bombed the crap out of Japan, reducing near all of it to rubble.

So ahh, Gaza is in wonderful condition right now? I had no idea.

 

[TomC]

The USA and Allies could only do that after the bombed the crap out of Japan, reducing near all of it to rubble.

So ahh, Gaza is in wonderful condition right now? I had no idea.

Ummm..
Wut?
Gaza is a huge mess. A humanitarian disaster. But it is still dominated by violent theocratic terrorists.
Tom

 

[Gospel]

And? The two categories are not mutually exclusive. The Iranian regime is both a government and a terrorist organization. So's the North Korean regime. So's the Syrian regime. So's the Afghan regime. So's ISIS.

You pressed a key on your board roughly 190 times to say you agree?

 

[Gospel]

But it is still dominated by violent theocratic terrorists.

Israel's objective is to remove Hamas entirely. While there's no certainty of success, my focus is on what Israel might do subsequently to prevent Hamas' return. It seems my point may not be coming across clearly. I acknowledge the presence of Hamas, I'm not contesting that fact; rather, I'm exploring Israel's potential strategies post-Hamas." You're arguing against a claim no one made.

 

[Bomb#20]

And? The two categories are not mutually exclusive. The Iranian regime is both a government and a terrorist organization. So's the North Korean regime. So's the Syrian regime. So's the Afghan regime. So's ISIS.

North Korea?? They're a rogue nation but how much terror do they do??? Their export is simply crime. (Drug smuggling, ransomware etc.)

How much terror do they do? Maybe more than the rest of the world put together. I didn't say it was exported. It uses terrorism systematically against the North Korean people. Google "three generations of punishment" some time. (Likewise, Syrian and Afghan government terrorism are mainly internal.)

As far as exported terrorism goes, there's some:

North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Gospel]

How in the world could they possibly do what Hamas doesn't want them to do? If you could somehow actually remove Hamas from the picture, sure, but that's not going to happen. Israel can't hope to actually get Hamas, they're just going for command and infrastructure. It will take Hamas years to rebuild to the point of attacking again but they won't be gone and their grip on Gaza won't change.

Israel has the opportunity to establish a collaborative and progressive relationship with the Palestinian people, similar to how the United States engaged with Japan post-World War II. By fostering mutual understanding and working together, Israel and the Palestinians can create a peaceful environment. This approach can also be instrumental in jointly addressing and mitigating the influence of extremist groups like Hamas, benefiting both communities.

Sorry, no. Not anymore.

I share this viewpoint. The tragic loss of civilian lives significantly complicates the path towards achieving a lasting peace. If that's what you mean. Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians have years of genuine grievances.

 

[TomC]

Israel's objective is to remove Hamas entirely.

I don't believe that is Israel's objective.

The objective of Likud and the IDF is to protect Israelis. By whatever means necessary. That's not the same as removing Hamas.

If Hamas filled in the tunnels and stopped importing missiles Israel would have no reason to get rid of them.
But until then...
Tom

 

[Bomb#20]

Why on earth would you think he doesn't think that?

International aid to Palestinians - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, aid to Palestinians totaled over $40 billion between 1994 and 2020."

That's what the international community was willing to spend before the terrorists were taken down; why the heck wouldn't we do it again once the aid is finally going to making a peaceful and prosperous Palestine?

1) An appreciable portion of that actually went to the terrorists.

2) Why should we expect a different result than last time? (Much of the money going to the top guy's pockets and to terror. And we have things like the EU repeatedly funding buildings whose true purpose is to be destroyed by Israel.)

Why would anyone have expected a different result last time? The expectation didn't stop the international donors then; why would it stop them now? TomC's scenario is predicated on Hamas having been taken down; the degree of diversion can hardly help but be reduced.

 

[Bomb#20]

According to the State Department, West-Bank Palestinians murdered twelve Israeli civilians in terror attacks in Israel in 2022 alone...

Israeli settler attacks on West Bank Palestinians have escalated since Oct. 7, UN says

<snip>

What's your point? Did somebody claim Israelis are not oppressing West Bank Palestinians?

 

[laughing dog]

Israel's objective is to remove Hamas entirely.

I don't believe that is Israel's objective.

The objective of Likud and the IDF is to protect Israelis. By whatever means necessary. That's not the same as removing Hamas.

Netanahyu said the goal of this attack is to remove Hamas. Are you calling him a liar?

 

[Copernicus]

Israel's objective is to remove Hamas entirely.

I don't believe that is Israel's objective.

The objective of Likud and the IDF is to protect Israelis. By whatever means necessary. That's not the same as removing Hamas.

Netanahyu said the goal of this attack is to remove Hamas. Are you calling him a liar?

The man is certainly a liar, but that is what he has stated as the goal. I think that a more hidden reason is the opportunity continued hostilities give him to remain in power. The sooner the violence ends, the sooner he stands to lose his job and possibly even go to jail.

 

[ZiprHead]

According to the State Department, West-Bank Palestinians murdered twelve Israeli civilians in terror attacks in Israel in 2022 alone...

Israeli settler attacks on West Bank Palestinians have escalated since Oct. 7, UN says

<snip>

What's your point? Did somebody claim Israelis are not oppressing West Bank Palestinians?

What's your point when you only mention it happening on one side?