Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Loren Pechtel]

Your “ bottom line reality” is another example of a bigoted assumption.

In what way, specifically? I don't see the assertion that Hamas led Gazans attacked Israel on Oct 7th as an assumption, much less bigoted.
Tom

"Hamas led Gazans" attacked Israel?

I thought the attackers were actual Hamas terrorists. If you have information indicating otherwise please link to it.

But Hamas is also the de facto government of Gaza. And they are recruited from the population of Gaza.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The argument that civilians are valid targets is the same argument Hamas used. That's why Hamas is evil. I don't want people in my country or in Israel to make the same argument (or anything 1 or 2 steps away from it) because I hold our country and our allies to a higher standard than desperate terrorists.

 

[laughing dog]

The argument that civilians are valid targets is the same argument Hamas used. That's why Hamas is evil. I don't want people in my country or in Israel to make the same argument (or anything 1 or 2 steps away from it) because I hold our country and our allies to a higher standard than desperate terrorists.

Yeah but their intent is evil while ours snd our allies is pure. Of course, intent doesn’t matter to the dead or their families.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Just saw an article that seems pretty timely given discussion.

Airstrike kills U.N. worker and his family.

Issam Al Mughrabi, who had worked at the U.N Development Program for 30 years, and his wife, his five children, and more than 70 members of his extended family, Achim Steiner, an administrator at the agency, said in a statement.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Derec]

WATCH: IDF, Shin Bet assassinate key Hamas weapons smuggler, Hassan Atrash, in Rafah

 

[Bomb#20]

I didn't say it must be included in the same statement; people who say it can freely choose to include or not include whatever they please. But people's choices are evidence of their psychology. Someone including it in the same statement is what it would take to provide empirical evidence for ld's contention. Likewise, it must not be included in the same statement in order for the accusation to serve its apparent intended purpose, which is to propagate the misrepresentation that the relation of the Israelis to the Palestinians is the same as the relation of the Afrikaaners to the black South Africans -- i.e., a one-way oppressor-oppressed relation -- as opposed to the two-way mutual-oppression relation the Israelis and Palestinians in fact have with each other. Every time yet another person makes the accusation without the stipulation, it adds more empirical evidence to the already overflowing pile in favor of the hypothesis that the intended purpose is exactly what it appears to be.

What definition of the term 'oppression' do you use, and how do you decide who is oppressing whom?

You want to bandy words over technicalities about the definition of "oppression"? Seriously? Does it also depend on what the definition of "is" is? I define "oppression" by common usage and I decide who is oppressing whom by common sense.

I want to understand what you mean.

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.

It is not used to indicate mutual hostilities between parties.

Was that a description of the relationship between a five-year-old and the thug who grabbed him and dragged him across the border? "Mutual hostilities"? Looks to me like an exercise of power by the thug over the five-year-old. I consider the act unjust and abusive. Don't you?

I believe you are using it as an appeal to emotion but I recognize you might be saying something else.

A. That assaults, rapes, kidnappings and murders are an exercise of power is a plain fact. Disputing that would take an extraordinary level of self-deception.

B. That they are an exercise of "power or authority" follows by elementary logic from the fact that they are an exercise of power.

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? 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?

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"...

So you tell me. If somebody raped you would you feel oppressed? If somebody kidnapped you would you feel oppressed? If somebody knifed you on a bus or wounded you with a roadside bomb would you feel oppressed? If over the course of your life somebody murdered half a dozen people you cared about would you feel oppressed? If somebody murdered you would you spend your last dying minutes thinking about what some third party had done to him that he felt you were a fitting revenge-by-proxy for, or would you spend them thinking about what he was doing to you?

If the person who raped or kidnapped me was an authority figure of some sort, like a police officer or county commissioner, and I had no recourse to justice as was the case for black women living in the South during the Jim Crow era, then yes, I would feel oppressed. Likewise, if people I loved were being threatened or murdered by authority figures like police officers or by vigilantes protected by authority figures (the KKK comes to mind, but the Oath Keepers run a close second), then I would feel oppressed. Once again, it would be people with some authority in society doing it which would make it oppression.

... unless you decided to walk back your definition of "oppression" ten seconds after you typed it. You appear to be trying to disappear the "power or" part out of your definition and throw it down the memory hole. You're now implying people need to have "authority" to qualify as oppressors and having power is not enough. So that's a great big "Yes", you do want to bandy words over technicalities about the definition of "oppression". 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".

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?

Some Feminists of my generation argued that sexism in our society made all men oppressors but I never fully agreed with that stance even though I could see their reasons for saying so.

Right you are. I can see their reasons too -- common stereotyping. Likewise, not all Palestinians are oppressing Israelis. Likewise, not all Israelis are oppressing Palestinians, so if that sort of thing were sufficient grounds for rejecting the two-way mutual oppression description it would equally be sufficient grounds for rejecting the one-way oppression description favored by the "Israel is apartheid" idiots. Not all Afrikaaners were oppressing black South Africans either.

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. 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.

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.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Your “ bottom line reality” is another example of a bigoted assumption.

In what way, specifically? I don't see the assertion that Hamas led Gazans attacked Israel on Oct 7th as an assumption, much less bigoted.
Tom

"Hamas led Gazans" attacked Israel?

I thought the attackers were actual Hamas terrorists. If you have information indicating otherwise please link to it.

If Gazans are led by Hamas. And Hamas is composed of Gazans. Then the people who attacked Israel were Hamas led Gazans. The pedantic semantic arguments get tiresome.
They may have also been part of some organized military group.
That I don't know about, and I sincerely doubt that you do either. I'm not sure such exists. Gazans and their leadership are notoriously "irregular". Like pushing their 20th year of a 4 year term.
Tom

You're going too far. They have an organized military structure--it's just a military of terrorists with a terrorist approach to combat.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I thought the attackers were actual Hamas terrorists. If you have information indicating otherwise please link to it.

Not trying to be argumentative...I think we should note that there has been a giant focus on Hamas in this thread, but there are also other players. A few surrounding countries have non-Hamas terrorist groups doing things like shooting and launching missiles once in a while. But, even more so, there was also Islamic Jihad that took part along with Hamas in kidnapping Israelis. We've really only mentioned Hamas and often the news is only talking about Hamas, like when discussing negotiations and ceasefires but again, there is also Islamic Jihad.

Groups like IJ are allies but they aren't in control of Gaza. Hamas is.

If Gazans are led by Hamas.

Not every activity of Gazans are led by Hamas and not all Gazans are led by Hamas. For example, when Gazans have dinner, they are not being led to eat dinner by Hamas. When the guy at the hospital was saying how much he blamed Hamas for what was happening he wasn't being led by Hamas to say that. Also, for example, Christians in Gaza are not being led by Hamas generally speaking in most activities. Those persons are not too different than more secular or other less extreme factions inside Gaza who think Hamas is too extreme. There's a continuum of extremist levels and a spectrum of different factions. So, to review, not all Gazans' activities are led by Hamas and not all Gazans are generally led by Hamas.

You're being pedantic here. Sure, Hamas doesn't do everything (but they do most things--Hamas is the majority of the GDP of Gaza) but nothing important happens without Hamas approval.

And Hamas is composed of Gazans.

I think this is fair to say that Hamas is composed of Palestinians as Hamas is primarily in Gaza but also has presence in the West Bank.

Not much of one. Fatah drove them out of the West Bank like they drove Fatah out of Gaza.

Then the people who attacked Israel were Hamas led Gazans.

The people who attacked were composed of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. It is true that Hamas probably took a front seat. There could have been other persons not originally from Gaza but launching from Gaza who took part in the acts...such as a smattering from West Bank, surrounding Muslim majority countries...in the same way that Islamic Jihad has bigger membership and in the same way that a few Americans were hostages and other countries as well who were in Israel the time.

So what? Hamas was in control. The presence of allies doesn't change that.

The pedantic semantic arguments get tiresome.

What is tiresome is that you are deliberately trying to broadbrush the people of Gaza. You know you are not supposed to do it and so you are trying to sneak it in on technicalities. When someone shows you, "hey look there are even more technicalities," then you bitch about it because your technicalities were not as good. So, just admit it and move on.

You are resorting to very pedantic arguments to avoid the reality.

 

[Arctish]

I didn't say it must be included in the same statement; people who say it can freely choose to include or not include whatever they please. But people's choices are evidence of their psychology. Someone including it in the same statement is what it would take to provide empirical evidence for ld's contention. Likewise, it must not be included in the same statement in order for the accusation to serve its apparent intended purpose, which is to propagate the misrepresentation that the relation of the Israelis to the Palestinians is the same as the relation of the Afrikaaners to the black South Africans -- i.e., a one-way oppressor-oppressed relation -- as opposed to the two-way mutual-oppression relation the Israelis and Palestinians in fact have with each other. Every time yet another person makes the accusation without the stipulation, it adds more empirical evidence to the already overflowing pile in favor of the hypothesis that the intended purpose is exactly what it appears to be.

What definition of the term 'oppression' do you use, and how do you decide who is oppressing whom?

You want to bandy words over technicalities about the definition of "oppression"? Seriously? Does it also depend on what the definition of "is" is? I define "oppression" by common usage and I decide who is oppressing whom by common sense.

I want to understand what you mean.

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.

The Palestinians have not had authority over Israelis at any time over the last 75 years.

Israelis gained authority over Palestinians who were still in their communities when Zionists declared the land was part of a new state they asserted existed and some other nations recognized. Israelis gained control over Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories in 1967.

Fighting, strife, insurrection, resisting occupation, resisting colonization, etc. are not acts of oppression. Terrorism can be, but only when the terrorism is committed by those in power, or those protected and enabled by those in power, like the KKK in the USA.

It is not used to indicate mutual hostilities between parties.

Was that a description of the relationship between a five-year-old and the thug who grabbed him and dragged him across the border? "Mutual hostilities"? Looks to me like an exercise of power by the thug over the five-year-old. I consider the act unjust and abusive. Don't you?

It was unjust and abusive. It was not oppression unless the thug was abusing his authority. For example, if the thug was employed by the government that had control over the lives of civilians, and the government had decided to imprison children in order to terrorize and punish their parents, that would be an abuse of power and thus, oppression.

Taking children without the authority to do so, is kidnapping.

I believe you are using it as an appeal to emotion but I recognize you might be saying something else.

A. That assaults, rapes, kidnappings and murders are an exercise of power is a plain fact. Disputing that would take an extraordinary level of self-deception.

B. That they are an exercise of "power or authority" follows by elementary logic from the fact that they are an exercise of power.

Having the power to do something does not indicate having the authority to do it.

You said you are using a common definition of oppression but you are completely divorcing it from the exercise of institutional power so that you can claim Palestinians oppress Israelis. It reminds me of Lost Cause mythology that calls the American Civil War the War of Northern Aggression. It's a ridiculous claim unsupported by historical facts or reason. But it sounds good to the folks who want to believe that all Israel ever did was say "Hi, I'm here" and smile at its new neighbors but the big bad meanies in the Middle East said "No, Jews can't have nice things!" and attacked.*

I'll respond to the rest of your post later tonight. It's a bit much to digest all at once.


* I actually saw that once in an animated 'explanation' of the fighting in Israel and Palestine posted by a pro-Zionist. It was silly to the point of stupidity but the guy thought it was a good video.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The argument that civilians are valid targets is the same argument Hamas used. That's why Hamas is evil. I don't want people in my country or in Israel to make the same argument (or anything 1 or 2 steps away from it) because I hold our country and our allies to a higher standard than desperate terrorists.

And where are you getting the notion that any of us think civilians are valid targets??

The problem is threefold:

1) The fact that Hamas fights in civilian attire means soldiers will fire based on behavior rather than attire--and mistakes are likely. This doesn't make civilians targets, it just means they're likely to be hit by mistake.

2) Many "civilians" are doing non-combat military things. Including a lot of children. It doesn't matter if the person carrying the bomb is a combatant or someone impressed into temporary service.

3) Hamas deliberate acts to maximize civilian casualties. It's pretty much impossible to avoid civilian casualties in such an environment. (And non-action is still an action. Doing nothing means more 10/7s--with Israeli civilian casualties.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Just saw an article that seems pretty timely given discussion.

Airstrike kills U.N. worker and his family.

Issam Al Mughrabi, who had worked at the U.N Development Program for 30 years, and his wife, his five children, and more than 70 members of his extended family, Achim Steiner, an administrator at the agency, said in a statement.

www.nytimes.com

The claim has already been walked back.

And I note the article refers to this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/17/world/middleeast/gaza-al-astal-loss.html

Never mind that several of them have been martyred over the years--combatants, some high ranking members of Hamas.

I suspect both articles are about equally accurate in their portrayal of them as innocents.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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? 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?

A simple test of unjust:

While you can come up with some extreme edge cases where rape is an appropriate course of action it is normally extremely clear cut that it's a wrongful act. Who crows about rapes committed by their soldiers? Who prosecutes rapes committed by their soldiers? (Admittedly, prosecuting rape in a wartime scenario is pretty hard.)

When one side crows about committing atrocities it's pretty clear where right and wrong are.

 

[bilby]

And where are you getting the notion that any of us think civilians are valid targets??

The shooting of civilians who aren't even enemies, but rather are escaped hostages, is a very strong hint indeed...

 

[bilby]

While you can come up with some extreme edge cases where rape is an appropriate course of action

No, you can't.

Seriously, what is wrong with you?

 

[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.

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

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

So you tell me. If somebody raped you would you feel oppressed? If somebody kidnapped you would you feel oppressed? If somebody knifed you on a bus or wounded you with a roadside bomb would you feel oppressed? If over the course of your life somebody murdered half a dozen people you cared about would you feel oppressed? If somebody murdered you would you spend your last dying minutes thinking about what some third party had done to him that he felt you were a fitting revenge-by-proxy for, or would you spend them thinking about what he was doing to you?

If the person who raped or kidnapped me was an authority figure of some sort, like a police officer or county commissioner, and I had no recourse to justice as was the case for black women living in the South during the Jim Crow era, then yes, I would feel oppressed. Likewise, if people I loved were being threatened or murdered by authority figures like police officers or by vigilantes protected by authority figures (the KKK comes to mind, but the Oath Keepers run a close second), then I would feel oppressed. Once again, it would be people with some authority in society doing it which would make it oppression.

... unless you decided to walk back your definition of "oppression" ten seconds after you typed it. You appear to be trying to disappear the "power or" part out of your definition and throw it down the memory hole. You're now implying people need to have "authority" to qualify as oppressors and having power is not enough. So that's a great big "Yes", you do want to bandy words over technicalities about the definition of "oppression".

No.

I want to use the words that provide the most accurate descriptions of things, not the ones people like to throw down because they like the sound of them.

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.

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?

Some Feminists of my generation argued that sexism in our society made all men oppressors but I never fully agreed with that stance even though I could see their reasons for saying so.

Right you are. I can see their reasons too -- common stereotyping. Likewise, not all Palestinians are oppressing Israelis. Likewise, not all Israelis are oppressing Palestinians, so if that sort of thing were sufficient grounds for rejecting the two-way mutual oppression description it would equally be sufficient grounds for rejecting the one-way oppression description favored by the "Israel is apartheid" idiots. Not all Afrikaaners were oppressing black South Africans either.

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. 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.

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.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I thought the attackers were actual Hamas terrorists. If you have information indicating otherwise please link to it.

Not trying to be argumentative...I think we should note that there has been a giant focus on Hamas in this thread, but there are also other players. A few surrounding countries have non-Hamas terrorist groups doing things like shooting and launching missiles once in a while. But, even more so, there was also Islamic Jihad that took part along with Hamas in kidnapping Israelis. We've really only mentioned Hamas and often the news is only talking about Hamas, like when discussing negotiations and ceasefires but again, there is also Islamic Jihad.

Groups like IJ are allies but they aren't in control of Gaza. Hamas is.

Islamic Jihad took part in the terrorism. Focus on this single fact, not addressing other parts of the post in this section. Do you disagree with the fact?

If Gazans are led by Hamas.

Not every activity of Gazans are led by Hamas and not all Gazans are led by Hamas. For example, when Gazans have dinner, they are not being led to eat dinner by Hamas. When the guy at the hospital was saying how much he blamed Hamas for what was happening he wasn't being led by Hamas to say that. Also, for example, Christians in Gaza are not being led by Hamas generally speaking in most activities. Those persons are not too different than more secular or other less extreme factions inside Gaza who think Hamas is too extreme. There's a continuum of extremist levels and a spectrum of different factions. So, to review, not all Gazans' activities are led by Hamas and not all Gazans are generally led by Hamas.

You're being pedantic here.

It is not pedantic to point out errors in broadbrushing.

Sure, Hamas doesn't do everything (but they do most things

Hamas doesn't do most things. Human existence in daily activities goes way beyond Hamas.

--Hamas is the majority of the GDP of Gaza) but nothing important happens without Hamas approval.

That is mostly government activity. We're talking all human activity.

And Hamas is composed of Gazans.

I think this is fair to say that Hamas is composed of Palestinians as Hamas is primarily in Gaza but also has presence in the West Bank.

Not much of one. Fatah drove them out of the West Bank like they drove Fatah out of Gaza.

But they are still there and so they are not strictly a Gaza phenomenon.

Then the people who attacked Israel were Hamas led Gazans.

The people who attacked were composed of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. It is true that Hamas probably took a front seat. There could have been other persons not originally from Gaza but launching from Gaza who took part in the acts...such as a smattering from West Bank, surrounding Muslim majority countries...in the same way that Islamic Jihad has bigger membership and in the same way that a few Americans were hostages and other countries as well who were in Israel the time.

So what?

So you are responding to a point without even understanding the reason for it.

Hamas was in control. The presence of allies doesn't change that.

The possible presence of non-Gazans would mean some of the terrorists could have been non-Gazans.

The pedantic semantic arguments get tiresome.

What is tiresome is that you are deliberately trying to broadbrush the people of Gaza. You know you are not supposed to do it and so you are trying to sneak it in on technicalities. When someone shows you, "hey look there are even more technicalities," then you bitch about it because your technicalities were not as good. So, just admit it and move on.

You are resorting to very pedantic arguments to avoid the reality.

You are the one avoiding reality. Thousands, perhaps as much as 20,000 Gazans, have been slaughtered. The actual reasoning for it is as punishment so these kinds of attacks don't happen again. They, of course, also hope to kill terrorists and free hostages but the recklessness is protocol. The destruction of infrastructure as well is deliberate and preemptive to provide no support even theoretical to Hamas. All broadbrushing Gazans does is obfuscate the issues. Instead of broadbrushing, people should just admit they are okay with killing civilian children in a bizarre hope to keep Israel safer longer term.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The argument that civilians are valid targets is the same argument Hamas used. That's why Hamas is evil. I don't want people in my country or in Israel to make the same argument (or anything 1 or 2 steps away from it) because I hold our country and our allies to a higher standard than desperate terrorists.

And where are you getting the notion that any of us think civilians are valid targets??

You keep making excuses for it and things almost as bad: my words were "or anything 1 or 2 steps away from it."

The problem is threefold:

1) The fact that Hamas fights in civilian attire means soldiers will fire based on behavior rather than attire--and mistakes are likely. This doesn't make civilians targets, it just means they're likely to be hit by mistake.

20,000 civilians is not a "mistake."

2) Many "civilians" are doing non-combat military things. Including a lot of children. It doesn't matter if the person carrying the bomb is a combatant or someone impressed into temporary service.

40% of 20,000 is 8,000 minors. And thousands of women. Prove your claim by showing these thousands were "carrying the bomb."

3) Hamas deliberate acts to maximize civilian casualties. It's pretty much impossible to avoid civilian casualties in such an environment. (And non-action is still an action. Doing nothing means more 10/7s--with Israeli civilian casualties.)

False dichotomy: either kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians or a thousand Israeli civilians.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Just saw an article that seems pretty timely given discussion.

Airstrike kills U.N. worker and his family.

Issam Al Mughrabi, who had worked at the U.N Development Program for 30 years, and his wife, his five children, and more than 70 members of his extended family, Achim Steiner, an administrator at the agency, said in a statement.

www.nytimes.com

The claim has already been walked back.

And I note the article refers to this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/17/world/middleeast/gaza-al-astal-loss.html

Never mind that several of them have been martyred over the years--combatants, some high ranking members of Hamas.

I suspect both articles are about equally accurate in their portrayal of them as innocents.

Your claims sound faithful.

Here is a better link.

Statement on the killing of UNDP staff member and family in Gaza

I am deeply saddened to announce the death of our UNDP colleague and his family in Gaza today. Issam Al Mughrabi (56), his wife Lamya’a (53), and his children Mohammad (32), Suad (30), Lama (27), Luai (23), Obaideh (13), were killed by an Israeli air strike near Gaza City today. The airstrike...

www.undp.org

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

IDF Wikipedia entry, Doctrine section:

IDF Code of Ethics​

Main article: IDF Code of Ethics
In 1992, the IDF drafted a Code of Conduct that combines international law, Israeli law, Jewish heritage and the IDF's own traditional ethical code—the IDF Spirit (Hebrew: רוח צה"ל, Ru'ah Tzahal).[77]

The document defines four core values for all IDF soldiers to follow, including "defense of the state, its citizens and its residents", "love of the homeland and loyalty to the country", "human dignity" and "stateliness, as well as ten secondary values.[77][78][79][80]

As of today "The Spirit of the IDF" (cf. supra) is still considered the only binding moral code that formally applies to the IDF troops. In 2009, Amos Yadlin (then head of Military Intelligence) suggested that the article he co-authored with Asa Kasher be ratified as a formal binding code, arguing that "the current code ['The Spirit of the IDF'] does not sufficiently address one of the army's most pressing challenges: asymmetric warfare against terrorist organizations that operate amid a civilian population".[81]

Military ethics​

Targeted killing​

Main article: Targeted killing by Israel
Targeted killing, targeted prevention[82][83] or assassination[84] is a tactic that has been repeatedly used by the IDF and other Israeli organisations in the course of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Iran–Israel proxy conflict or other conflicts.[84]

In 2005, Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin co-authored a noticed article published in the Journal of Military Ethics under the title: "Military Ethics of Fighting Terror: An Israeli Perspective". The article was meant as an "extension of the classical Just War Theory", and as a "[needed] third model" or missing paradigm besides which of "classical war (army) and law enforcement (police).", resulting in a "doctrine (...) on the background of the IDF fight against acts and activities of terror performed by Palestinian individuals and organizations."[85]

In this article, Kasher and Yadlin came to the conclusion that targeted killings of terrorists were justifiable, even at the cost of hitting nearby civilians. In a 2009 interview to Haaretz, Asa Kasher later confirmed, pointing to the fact that in an area in which the IDF does not have effective security control (e.g., Gaza, vs. East-Jerusalem), soldiers' lives protection takes priority over avoiding injury to enemy civilians.[86] Some, along with Avishai Margalit and Michael Walzer, have disputed this argument, arguing that such a position was "contrary to centuries of theorizing about the morality of war as well as international humanitarian law",[87] since drawing "a sharp line between combatants and noncombatants" would be "the only morally relevant distinction that all those involved in a war can agree on."[88]

Hannibal Directive​

Main article: Hannibal Directive
The Hannibal Directive is a controversial procedure that the IDF has used to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. It was introduced in 1986, after a number of abductions of IDF soldiers in Lebanon and the subsequent controversial prisoner exchanges. The full text of directive has never been published and until 2003 Israeli military censorship even forbade any discussion of the subject in the press. The directive has been changed several times. At one time the formulation was that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces."[89]

The Hannibal directive has, at times, apparently existed in two different versions, one top-secret written version, accessible only to the upper echelon of the IDF, and one "oral law" version for division commanders and lower levels. In the latter versions, "by all means" was often interpreted literally, as in "an IDF soldier was "better dead than abducted". In 2011, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz stated the directive does not permit killing IDF soldiers.[90]

Dahiya doctrine​

Main article: Dahiya doctrine
The Dahiya doctrine[91] is a military strategy of asymmetric warfare, outlined by former IDF Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot, which encompasses the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of regimes deemed to be hostile as a measure calculated to deny combatants the use of that infrastructure[92] and endorses the employment of "disproportionate power" to secure that end.[93][94] The doctrine is named after the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut, where Hezbollah was headquartered during the 2006 Lebanon War, which were heavily damaged by the IDF.[92]

 

[Harry Bosch]

IDF Wikipedia entry, Doctrine section:

IDF Code of Ethics​

Main article: IDF Code of Ethics
In 1992, the IDF drafted a Code of Conduct that combines international law, Israeli law, Jewish heritage and the IDF's own traditional ethical code—the IDF Spirit (Hebrew: רוח צה"ל, Ru'ah Tzahal).[77]

The document defines four core values for all IDF soldiers to follow, including "defense of the state, its citizens and its residents", "love of the homeland and loyalty to the country", "human dignity" and "stateliness, as well as ten secondary values.[77][78][79][80]

As of today "The Spirit of the IDF" (cf. supra) is still considered the only binding moral code that formally applies to the IDF troops. In 2009, Amos Yadlin (then head of Military Intelligence) suggested that the article he co-authored with Asa Kasher be ratified as a formal binding code, arguing that "the current code ['The Spirit of the IDF'] does not sufficiently address one of the army's most pressing challenges: asymmetric warfare against terrorist organizations that operate amid a civilian population".[81]

Military ethics​

Targeted killing​

Main article: Targeted killing by Israel
Targeted killing, targeted prevention[82][83] or assassination[84] is a tactic that has been repeatedly used by the IDF and other Israeli organisations in the course of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Iran–Israel proxy conflict or other conflicts.[84]

In 2005, Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin co-authored a noticed article published in the Journal of Military Ethics under the title: "Military Ethics of Fighting Terror: An Israeli Perspective". The article was meant as an "extension of the classical Just War Theory", and as a "[needed] third model" or missing paradigm besides which of "classical war (army) and law enforcement (police).", resulting in a "doctrine (...) on the background of the IDF fight against acts and activities of terror performed by Palestinian individuals and organizations."[85]

In this article, Kasher and Yadlin came to the conclusion that targeted killings of terrorists were justifiable, even at the cost of hitting nearby civilians. In a 2009 interview to Haaretz, Asa Kasher later confirmed, pointing to the fact that in an area in which the IDF does not have effective security control (e.g., Gaza, vs. East-Jerusalem), soldiers' lives protection takes priority over avoiding injury to enemy civilians.[86] Some, along with Avishai Margalit and Michael Walzer, have disputed this argument, arguing that such a position was "contrary to centuries of theorizing about the morality of war as well as international humanitarian law",[87] since drawing "a sharp line between combatants and noncombatants" would be "the only morally relevant distinction that all those involved in a war can agree on."[88]

Hannibal Directive​

Main article: Hannibal Directive
The Hannibal Directive is a controversial procedure that the IDF has used to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. It was introduced in 1986, after a number of abductions of IDF soldiers in Lebanon and the subsequent controversial prisoner exchanges. The full text of directive has never been published and until 2003 Israeli military censorship even forbade any discussion of the subject in the press. The directive has been changed several times. At one time the formulation was that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces."[89]

The Hannibal directive has, at times, apparently existed in two different versions, one top-secret written version, accessible only to the upper echelon of the IDF, and one "oral law" version for division commanders and lower levels. In the latter versions, "by all means" was often interpreted literally, as in "an IDF soldier was "better dead than abducted". In 2011, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz stated the directive does not permit killing IDF soldiers.[90]

Dahiya doctrine​

Main article: Dahiya doctrine
The Dahiya doctrine[91] is a military strategy of asymmetric warfare, outlined by former IDF Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot, which encompasses the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of regimes deemed to be hostile as a measure calculated to deny combatants the use of that infrastructure[92] and endorses the employment of "disproportionate power" to secure that end.[93][94] The doctrine is named after the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut, where Hezbollah was headquartered during the 2006 Lebanon War, which were heavily damaged by the IDF.[92]

Yea I don’t blame the Israelis to not wanting to be taken hostage!