this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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librehab

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"LibRehab" is a place to point people to when they showcase clear signs of Liberalism (not in a mean way). It is also a place to proactively destroy your liberalism before it becomes counterrevolutionary.

Posts here should be a mix of simplified theory, countering of historical revisionism / anti-communist talking points, and a nonjudgmental space for those on the journey of deprogramming their mind.

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The obvious response is that Gaza is a very densely populated place, of course there's civilians near any given location, that's not a conspiracy by Hamas. But are there any other talking points I should hit?

(I'm not really a lib in rehab, but this seems like the comm for getting talking points straight)

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago

isn't idf headquarters outside a mall in tel aviv?

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If Hamas is using civilians as human shields then why does Israel keep bombing them? The point of hiding behind civilians is that you're playing a dirty trick on an enemy who doesn't want to hurt innocent people. Israel has shown no such restraint, preferring to make the situation as bad as possible for civilians through bombings, displacement, cutting off services, and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching those who need it. Israel doesn't care about Palestinian civilians in any meaningful way, and Hamas is obviously aware of that, so why pretend that civilians provide any cover at all?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Westerners don’t believe that Israel is callous towards Palestinians. In fact you will rarely hear about them during this conflict because if you say something about Palestine, you’re automatically pro-Hamas

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

For sure, but at that point you can just end the conversation. You can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. You have to either say nothing, or be content with being correct and moving on.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the warsaw ghetto resistance is using civilians as human shields

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

this comparison needs to be made every single time a liberal dares to open their mouth

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

if someone's actually using a human shield, you're not suddenly empowered to just obliterate the human shield are you?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

IOF doctrine says yes you are, even if the "human shield" is a captured Israeli military member being held hostage by Palestinian fighters.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Imagine if a bank robber took a hostage, then the cops show up and just magdump into robber and hostage alike, and when questioned they go "The robber was using the hostage as a human shield!"

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

This happened in Russia like 3 times putin-wink

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago

the only countries who use "human shields" are always the one america or it's allies is bombing. it is only used to place the guilt of civilian deaths upon anyone who dares resist.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Israeli police was literally walking and shooting from the rave party croud when the flood began

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Murdering human shields makes you the bad guy

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Point out that they're completely ineffective as human shields since the IDF just blows them up or shoots them anyway (maybe a good time to reference Hannibal Doctrine).

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

You mean your enemy isn't wearing clearly marked uniforms and standing in the middle of a field? How contrarian of them, do they not know the Marquis of Queensbury rules?

They're "using human shields" because these are their neighborhoods. Its easier to leave your family at home when you're invading a foreign country than when you're being invaded. These "terrorists" are teenagers defending the streets they grew up on

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Only the "bad guys" shoot through hostages in the movies. The "good guys" dont 😠

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Just say that there wasn't a Hamas base in that hospital or the various ones that have been blown up or taken over by settlers.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a broader issue than the hospital explosion

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

The United States uses the entire settler population of “Israel” as human shields.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

show them the pic of the israelis strapping a palestinian child on a tank.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

expert-shapiro umm umm something something hamas deepfake very-intelligent

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Wait is that a thing wtf

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I've seen that picture but can't for the life of me find it. Can you post it?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Ask them to if they also consider this Ukrainian artillery position in a school running track to be a form of human shield use. If not, explain the difference. If so, is Russia justified to level Kiev as Israel has been levelling Gaza?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

sneak up behind them like im from metal gear solid and use them as a human shield

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

thoughts of gears of war 2

deeper-sadness

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Librehab?

Didn't know we had this subcom.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Now I see it’s fashionable to call this ethnic cleansing, but that only makes sense if you’re thinking like a settler.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Are you really telling me that Hamas, upon hearing the whistle as an incoming shell or missile from the IDF, rushes to grab the nearest civilian and wraps themselves up in them snugly like some sort of human blanket in order to protect themselves from ordinance that can level entire buildings? Seriously?"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

That Israel uses civilians as human targets?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Hamas are prisoners among prisoners stuck in an open air prison. There is nowhere for them to exist that doesn't result in them being surrounded by civilians.

Israel moves settlers onto stolen land literally within hours of taking it so that anyone fighting to take it back has to go through the settlers. They literally use civilians to shield their advances.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

“Civilian shields” is (and probably always was) a thought terminating cliche to write off the killing of civilian. It’s been thrown around by Western media in like every American imperialist war effort of the past 50 years.

It’s dishonest language that attributes civilian deaths to the enemy, of course, because they’re the bad guys and they have no regard for human life. We would never target civilians, because we’re the good guys, right? If we kill a civilian, it’s because the enemy put them between us (good) and them (evil)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I looked at some the photos of reports like this, and it’s usually just a bunch of kids crowding a fighter while he’s shooting at the IDF. Like yeah, the kids should probably be told to fuck off, but that’s not exactly the same as attaching a baby to your vest and going on a rampage

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

You're taking the phrase "human shield" a bit literally....

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

There's a few different things you can say. You can ask them about any specific instances, to which they'll probably answer with the music festival or the POW Hamas took in the beginning.
To the first you can point out that video footage show IOF at the festival, shooting from the middle of a crowd. There's more, but I'm lazy, it's easy to find tho.
To the latter you can ask why Israel knowingly fired on their own people. This one you can also make more general - Human shields are vile because they make use of a "weakness" of the other, that they refuse to shoot civilians. When the IOF just shoots anyway, then how are they above critique?

You can also more generally counteract their narrative of human shields. Ask them for instances of Hamas making use of these, and discuss them with them. If their definition is that Hamas hides among civilians during bombings (wrong also, they hide in the tunnels) ask them: When Gaza is so tiny and so densely packed that any bombing will hot civilians, how can Hamas avoid being amidst civilians? How does this justify a carpet bombing of Gaza? Perhaps it is the IOFs methods that should be critiqued here, when they cannot avoid murdering civilians.

You can also go on the offensive. If you know they Support Ukraine, then challenge them on this. Show them news stories of Ukrainians making use of civilians as shields (amnesty International released a report on it). Ask if that justifies Russia's invasion. Ask if that justifies levelling Ukrainian cities.