Comment by edanm
2 years ago
> But that doesn't excuse the murder of thousands of civilians in collective retribution for the murder of a few dozen.
1,200 Israelis were killed, not "a few dozen". 250 were kidnapped and held hostage, of those about 130 are still being held.
Second, Israel isn't "murdering" civilians in collective retribution. It's fighting a war against a neighboring "government" that has just invaded it, slaughtered thousands of its citizens, and has promised to do it again and again.
Many civilians are dying in this war, which is a horrible tragedy, and is unfortunately true of every war, which is one reason wars are so terrible. But it's hard to say this war isn't justified given the promises of Hamas.
>Many civilians are dying […] But it's hard to say this war isn't justified given the promises.
This is exactly the rhetoric that made Hamas think it was okay to kill Israeli civilians. Both think the other is an existential threat.
I'm sorry, but it's not "rhetoric" for me. Hamas invaded Israel, killed many people, and has promised to do it again, all while continuing to fire rockets at us.
Hamas has promised to do this over and over again, saying that October 7th was "just a rehearsal".
I'm not at all saying that every action is justified, but fighting to stop Hamas from having the capability of doing this again is definitely justified.
(And for what it's worth, the "other side" thinking October 7th was justified makes no sense, because it isn't going to help them achieve their actual goals, only cause immense suffering to their own side. In that sense Hamas's actions are double-crimes - both killing Israelis, and doing so in a manner that was bound to cause the death of their own populations.)
Then maybe the Palestinians should oust whoever fires thousands of rockets into their neighboring country forcing their neighbor to respond in self defense.
Maybe Americans should just do a citizens arrest on all the criminals so their police don’t have to shoot everyone for their own safety? About as realistic a proposal.
> Second, Israel isn't "murdering" civilians in collective retribution.
Dehumanization is the first step to a genocide.
Additionally, this does not explain the violence being done in the West Bank to Palestinians, a population that is notably not ruled by Hamas.
What did I say that was dehumanizing? If you're talking about me putting the word "murder" in quotes, it's because casualties of war aren't usually referred to as victims of murder, but I was quoting the parent post.
> Additionally, this does not explain the violence being done in the West Bank to Palestinians, a population that is notably not ruled by Hamas.
There are definitely Hamas operatives there as well, not to mention a public that is overwhelmingly supportive of Hamas's actions. I'm not saying this to say they should be "punished", I'm saying this to explain that there are genuine security threats that Israel needs to deal with in the WB as well.
That said, some of the violence there is totally unjustified, especially violence instigated by settlers and not the IDF.
You are conveniently ignoring that these aren't civilians getting caught in a crossfire. They're civilians being targeted. You don't kill about 20k civilians in 2 months without targeting civilians.
To call these deaths simply a casualty of a normal war is seriously undercutting how heinous the actions by the IDF are.
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