Ask Lemmy

(Comment 2 of 2)

1. Just as to whether the scale of the Israeli response was unjustified — No.

2. Yes. There is a shared responsibility between the hostage taker and the person willing to shoot the hostage(s) alongside the hostage-taker. To me it speaks more of the "good guy," who is so willing to level the hostages than it even does the terrorist for whom we already know lacks moral values. To me it (a) makes zero logical sense in stifling radicalization in the long-term, and (b) it undermines a fundamental western philosophy that actually underscores our entire judicial philosophy: That "it is better that 10 guilty persons go free than 1 innocent person be imprisoned." It's the same reason the US negotiated with Russia to free innocent people in exchange for giving them back scum. The value of our innocent people is greater than their scum. Naturally, I would respect Israel more if they actually cared about civilians of all types a little bit more as opposed to justifying what is, on paper, far worse than the original attack.

3. I'm not sure a ratio, but I'll say up to but not exceeding 1,200 total or whatever the official toll of October 7th was. As Robert McNamara once said, "Proportionality should be a guideline to war."

4. Ideally, none.

5. There is no real government of Gaza; and there is no national identity. There is a gang and that gang like a pimp offers protection to the Goliath next door who is equally no friend but rather a right-wing nationalist state with an obvious interest in creeping territorial annexation that can be tracked going back decades. Both sides of shown an unwillingness to compromise ultimately, which again dates back to the assassination of Israel's former prime minister. My direct answer: Studying how radicalization occurs; why some humans radicalize and others do not. The answer isn't all that difficult in my view.

6. I'm not sure I buy the premise; there were countless times where IDF has murdered and yes, even raped in between truces; established blockades and invoked clear provocations in their own right.

7. To make this analogy work, you need to move these people across the border and into the streets of Israel. For that to happen, they need to get through a heavily-defended border, and yes, if that's going to happen, then sure. But I'll tell you what's really happening: You're leaving your home and deciding to wander into an adjacent city of people holed up in their own homes with babies on them and deciding, "Okay we'll just blow you up where you are even though you are not clear and present danger to the civilians of OUR city — nor ever would be if we actually took adequate measures to secure the bridge to our city properly.And in fact, we don't even fully know for sure IF there is a target in this area but we're just going to level it on a lead anyway." Quite a bit different, no? I'm going to also take a wild guess and say that Hamas isn't going so far as to do that and is simply hiding wherever they possibly can because Gaza isn't even that big, and that if they were strapping babies to themselves then they probably would face quite a bit of backlash even from those whom they try to oppress.

8. Russia basically is doing this with their mobilization and obvious attempts to purge ethnic minorities and other undesireables inside Russia. Unfortunately Ukraine has no choice given the the threat. But again, notice the difference in that Ukraine is legitimately playing defense.

I'll conclude with a reiteration of my original point: that in being Pro-Civilian, I cannot in good conscience believe that Israel is making a concerted effort to reduce civilian casualties; nor can I see how this will ever prevent further radicalization in the future without invoking genocide itself. The amount of civilian murders by Israel in their calculations to kill Hamas is on a scale that Hamas could not achieve for 50 or even 100 years. And within that time frame, I'm certain we could've figured out a better solution.