How do you feel about financing a genocide?
How do you feel about financing a genocide?
I didn't want to direct this question to Americans specifically because, at this point, other countries have shown support to Israel in one or the other way. If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets. Shit, I'm right now in the hospital but all I can think about is protesting anyway just to feel I did something to stop this madness.
Are you doing something about this? Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
EDIT: So, buying Chinese stuff takes the USS Gerald Ford to Gaza’s coast. Also, TIL that that chocolate my cousin gave me when she was 20 and I was 5, (delicious stuff!) made me a slavist-ish. The fact remains, this genocide is being paid and supported by taxpayers money; of course, I was hoping that most of us didn’t pay taxes wishing for this. Thank you all for your responses, some of them were hard to swallow.
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Ok, I give you benefit of a doubt that you did not think through this analogy. Let’s go in details. Step by step.
Suppose that a person X of some nationality makes some demands, like remove government and release all prisoners, and while doing that, kills somebody and hides in the city while being armed threatening to kill more if police comes for him or the demands are not met. What normal civilized response of the state would be and would not be?
It definitely would not release prisoners, nor remove the government. And it would not be “do nothing” because in the city there are other civilians who might suffer when the person X is apprehended. It would neither be let’s kill people of the same nationality.
So, instead the police would hunt and try to apprehend or kill him while minimizing civilian casualties. But civilian casualties are quite possible.
This is exactly what Israel is doing. It goes after Hamas. It does not go after Arabs because they are Arabs (in sharp contrast to what Hamas did - killing Jews because they are Jews). And Israel does minimize casualties, but it is just not possible not to have casualties at all (this is where analogy breaks, sometimes criminals are apprehended without any inconvenience to public).
Yielding to Hamas demands would be mistake for the same reason why it would be mistake in analogy. Doing nothing would be also a mistake, also, for the same reason as in analogy. The guilty should be apprehended/killed if resists while minimizing civilian casualties - true in both cases.
I will say even more. When Hamas was planing this, it perfectly understood, that it can not win war with Israel, and that Israel will retaliate with many civilian casualties in Gaza. While Israel essentially does not have a choice in its action, Hamas did. And yet it decided to kill 1000+ civilians inviting death of civilians in Gaza precisely for the reason of many posts appearing on internet “ah, poor civilians, look, Israel is bad”. This is Hamas making, not Israeli.
Zealotry has warped your mind. The validity of my message and analogy stand. I find it truly sad how little you value human life, to the point of mocking the murder of civilians. Hope that you come to terms with the utterly vile nature of what you've said some day.
Emotions have closed your mind, and overwhelmed your ability to think clearly. The loss of life is for sure tragic, but you refuse to see that the responsibility lies on Hamas. It is the criminal in your analogy.
Over the years I criticized Israel for its policies in West Bank and sector Gaza. But when finally Israel started to warm up and negotiate with Hamas, thinking that “death to Israel” is just political slogan meant for campaigning, when Israel started to increase working permits, Hamas was planing to do what it is done with full knowledge about what happened next. And you manage somehow blame Israel for that.
I just hope that one day you will understand which side is on the side of dignity of free human life, and which side are religious zealots.
Cool, more gross shit to read. Thanks pal. You get top marks in the how to be an unapologetic monster creative writing class.
It's sad, you probably think you're doing Israel a favor by excusing what they're doing right now. Make sure to do your part and send a bunch of "stop hitting yourself" t shirts to the dead Palestinian woman and children so they can remember that they had it coming.
So, your honest believe that Israel should have done nothing after this attack? What if the sides were reversed? What if it was Israel that just decided to kill without provocation 1500 civilians in a single day in Palestine, and Palestinian state somehow was stronger than now and could retaliate more or less safely. What they should have done?
Here's something I can tell you that's not a hypothetical.
20 years ago I watched thousands burn, jump and get crushed to dust live on a classroom TV. Our leaders agreed that there would be retribution no matter the cost, and the ones who spoke out against it were called cowards. In retrospect, I think so much of the anger people felt was because with all our supposed power and might, in the back of their minds they couldn't feel safe anymore. These people whose identities had become so entwined with boastful national pride were ready for their glory to be restored with the suffering and death of others. It didn't matter who did the dying. We'd given ourselves to fear.
The world stood behind us and over years and then decades the body count climbed to a number nobody could know. We poisoned the land of the people we killed with depleted uranium in everything from tank shells to breaching charges and the rate of cancer deaths is still rising in those places. Do you know what America got back from its campaign of horrors?
Nothing.
What exists in the wake of these "just" crimes is a world no safer than it was before. The war on terror likely made far more terrorists than it stopped and the freedoms we gave up never came back. The terrorists won. Their goal was to undermine our society and its status in the world. And they did just that with a handful of people.
Israel has already exacted it's blood cost. It's already doubled their number of dead. The world doesn't have the same sympathy for this thing anymore because so many know where it leads. If it doesn't bring itself back from the brink then it can only lead to more years and decades of killing. I know this ain't great to hear but when people are saying to level Gaza and it's people once and for all does that not ring in your ears like someone saying their extermination is the "solution?"
Knowing what I know now, yeah, Israel should have done just slightly more than nothing. You should have showed the world your pain and your attackers your humanity. If you truly wish for peace than what better time than when perhaps you could have had sympathy from some across that fence. Wars don't solve anything. They just get people killed. I know that advice or opinion seems impractical but there has to be a moment where some people demand an end to the violence. None of us know how big that group would have to be or what they could say to stop the killing but they could.
It only took a few hundred people 20 years ago to undermine the worlds remaining superpower. They couldn't until they did and the same goes for those who would demand peace. I'm not sure where you're from or what you've seen in life but I can tell you as I age this thought is only becoming clearer. We have a choice in these moments. I only wish that I could go back and put my voice with the cowards that knew these things back then.
The only offensive war worth fighting and the only war that can be won is for the hearts and minds of your enemies. Defensive wars are a different story but lets not mince words on the difference between an incursion, an invasion and an occupation.
This is the entirety of my perspective, so I've got really nothing to add. I truly have tried to give you a genuine answer here so take it or leave it but that's where I get off this conversation.
And yet, you have not answered the question.
Here's something I can tell you that's not a hypothetical.
20 years ago I watched thousands burn, jump and get crushed to dust live on a classroom TV. Our leaders agreed that there would be retribution no matter the cost, and the ones who spoke out against it were called cowards. In retrospect, I think so much of the anger people felt was because with all our supposed power and might, in the back of their minds they couldn't feel safe anymore. These people whose identities had become so entwined with boastful national pride were ready for their glory to be restored with the suffering and death of others. It didn't matter who did the dying. We'd given ourselves to fear.
The world stood behind us and over years and then decades the body count climbed to a number nobody could know. We poisoned the land of the people we killed with depleted uranium in everything from tank shells to breaching charges and the rate of cancer deaths is still rising in those places. Do you know what America got back from its campaign of horrors?
Nothing.
What exists in the wake of these "just" crimes is a world no safer than it was before. The war on terror likely made far more terrorists than it stopped and the freedoms we gave up never came back. The terrorists won. Their goal was to undermine our society and its status in the world. And they did just that with a handful of people.
Israel has already exacted it's blood cost. It's already doubled their number of dead. The world doesn't have the same sympathy for this thing anymore because so many know where it leads. If it doesn't bring itself back from the brink then it can only lead to more years and decades of killing. I know this ain't great to hear but when people are saying to level Gaza and it's people once and for all does that not ring in your ears like someone saying their extermination is the "solution?"
Knowing what I know now, yeah, Israel should have done just slightly more than nothing. You should have showed the world your pain and your attackers your humanity. If you truly wish for peace than what better time than when perhaps you could have had sympathy from some across that fence. Wars don't solve anything. They just get people killed. I know that advice or opinion seems impractical but there has to be a moment where some people demand an end to the violence. None of us know how big that group would have to be or what they could say to stop the killing but they could.
It only took a few hundred people 20 years ago to undermine the worlds remaining superpower. They couldn't until they did and the same goes for those who would demand peace. I'm not sure where you're from or what you've seen in life but I can tell you as I age this thought is only becoming clearer. We have a choice in these moments. I only wish that I could go back and put my voice with the cowards that knew these things back then.
The only offensive war worth fighting and the only war that can be won is for the hearts and minds of your enemies. Defensive wars are a different story but lets not mince words on the difference between an incursion, an invasion and an occupation.
This is the entirety of my perspective, so I've got really nothing to add. I truly have tried to give you a genuine answer here so take it or leave it but that's where I get off this conversation.