Oct 7

[jadis]

As long as it's eye for an eye you are cool with it.

Yeah slaughter all the women and children that have nothing to do with a terrorist organization. Basically fuck them they shouldn't have been born or lived in that area.

This is pure theology: just the most basic version of the suspicion of Jews deeply ingrained in secular-Christian cultures. The less naïve at least avoid spelling it out. 

Pursuing a "proportional" response in the village idiot sense of the word, in which it's been employed here, would mean to do an Oct 7: to deliberately slaughter, rape, mutilate, burn alive civilians. For a non-village idiot discussion of "collective punishment," "proportionality" and the rest of the accumulated secular Christian legalstic wisdom in the context of Israel see this.

Israel has not only a right but a literal obligation to prosecute a war against a group committed to its elimination. This same group has taken unprecedented efforts to embed itself among and under civilian population. That's part of the tragedy of this war.

War is hell. But Hamas foreclosed all non-military options.

[Guybrush]

@jadis maybe take another look at your posting and rhetoric. Is your ambition here to be a basic troll?

It seems like a complete waste of time to engage with you on anything.

[DJChameleon]

@jadis all of your posts are intellectually dishonest. I'm done even interacting with you after this last post of mines. You are boring as fuck.

Israel's response to Oct 7th is way over blown compared to what happened to them. They were chomping at the bits to have an excuse to be heavy handed with their response and they loved that Oct. 7th gave them the opportunity to respond but they went completely overboard. Now they are flooding areas underground claiming that it's to drown out the tunnel system but what it is doing in reality is degrading the structure of the soil so that more buildings will collapse without proper foundation. Israel is evil as fuck.

[jadis]

Now they are flooding areas underground claiming that it's to drown out the tunnel system but what it is doing in reality is degrading the structure of the soil so that more buildings will collapse without proper foundation. Israel is evil as fuck.

Can you unpack this one for me? The one aspect of warfare that we can all agree Israel has shown itself to be pretty good at is collapsing buildings in Gaza through the old fashioned method of bombing the fuck out of them. Why would it need to "degrade the structure of the soil" to achieve that?

Also I take it you believe that Hamas's network of underground tunnels is not a thing? Not a serious factor? Don't follow this one at all.

[DJChameleon]

Can you unpack this one for me? The one aspect of warfare that we can all agree Israel has shown itself to be pretty good at is collapsing buildings in Gaza through the old fashioned method of bombing the fuck out of them. Why would it need to "degrade the structure of the soil" to achieve that?

Also I take it you believe that Hamas's network of underground tunnels is not a thing? Not a serious factor? Don't follow this one at all.

Israel is flooding Palestine with sea water... they say it's because of Hamas tunnels but the truth is experts are saying this is a war crime because it degrades the soil and will cause buildings above to collapse, as well as creating ecological damage making it inhabitable. In the end no one will live there.


That's why they are doing it. I'm not denying that Hamas has intricate tunnels underground. The fact of the matter is they want it to be damn near impossible to rebuild in that same area again. Evil shit.

[jadis]

Israel is flooding Palestine with sea water... they say it's because of Hamas tunnels but the truth is experts are saying this is a war crime because it degrades the soil and will cause buildings above to collapse, as well as creating ecological damage making it inhabitable. In the end no one will live there.


That's why they are doing it. I'm not denying that Hamas has intricate tunnels underground. The fact of the matter is they want it to be damn near impossible to rebuild in that same area again. Evil shit.

I'm not surprised they're saying it. We also know Israel did a climate change in Gaza, as well as a capitalism. Not just the genocide and soil degradation.

Neither am I surprised by your absolute confidence about the intentions of a country you know nothing about except that it's ontologically evil.

You say though Israel is flooding "Palestine". I thought it was the Gaza Strip. Want to explain why it's Palestine? What is Palestine?

Israel's response to Oct 7th is way over blown compared to what happened to them.

Thousands of jihadists murdered over a thousand Israelis, civilians for the most part, with gleeful relish, in the worst antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust. They took some 250 others hostage. Israel's response is to do whatever it takes to eradicate the jihadist group that did it to them and that wants to do it again and again and again until there's no one left to murder. Eradicating them is the only reasonable and moral response.

Hamas could've ended it long time ago by releasing the hostages and surrendering. It keeps rejecting Israeli offers of a ceasefire and hostage deal.

If Israel wanted to kill all Gazans this war would've ended on Oct 8.

[DJChameleon]

If Israel wanted to kill all Gazans this war would've ended on Oct 8.

They sure have a funny way of show that 1k Israelis dead compared tens of thousands Palestinian civilians in the name of eradicating a terrorist group that will just create a power vacuum and another group will pop up to replace them. As if this conflict hasn't been going on for decades as it is.

They had one temporary ceasefire and released a few hostages but near the end both sides went back on their deals so the fighting continued. Israel has been adamant about not wanting a ceasefire because they are so obsessed with wiping out Hamas. They dont care about civilians anymore on both sides. Zionists just want to wipe out that group at all costs. If their own people die so be it. Casualties of war is their mentality. You make it seem like I said all jews are evil. No just Zionists and the IDF and what they continue to do to civilians.

[Guybrush]

You're not wrong, @DJChameleon .

As I posted, and published by the International Court of Justice; 25,700 Palestinians have been killed, over 63,000 injuries have been reported, over 360,000 housing units have been destroyed or partially damaged and approximately 1.7 million persons have been internally displaced. An unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger.

A terrorist attack is answered with an attack on close to two million people. It is disproportionate.

You won't convince Jadis of this, though.

[jadis]

They sure have a funny way of show that 1k Israelis dead compared tens of thousands Palestinian civilians in the name of eradicating a terrorist group that will just create a power vacuum and another group will pop up to replace them. As if this conflict hasn't been going on for decades as it is.

They had one temporary ceasefire and released a few hostages but near the end both sides went back on their deals so the fighting continued. Israel has been adamant about not wanting a ceasefire because they are so obsessed with wiping out Hamas. They dont care about civilians anymore on both sides. Zionists just want to wipe out that group at all costs. If their own people die so be it. Casualties of war is their mentality. You make it seem like I said all jews are evil. No just Zionists and the IDF and what they continue to do to civilians.

Israel's goal is that Hamas 2.0 doesn't have the infrastructure gathered and built by Hamas since 2007: it will be a Hamas without the rocket launchers, without the weapon factories, without the tunnels through which weapons can be smuggled in from Egypt etc.

Can you spell out what you think "Zionists" are? What is the difference between Israelis and Zionists? 

The famous "proportionality"... We keep insisting on using it colloquially (comparing tolls) when it means a different thing.

Perhaps the most misused term from the universe of the laws of war is proportionality. Every military action that Israel has conducted in my lifetime has been held to be "disproportionate." Normally the case is made by comparing casualty statistics, and indeed in all of Israel's wars the number of Israeli casualties has always been significantly lower than those of its enemies. It is rare that the side that wins a war has higher casualties than the side that loses, and Israel has for the most part emerged with the upper hand in all of its military confrontations with its Arab neighbors, even those that began with what for Israel were the worst possible opening conditions.

When modern armies face guerrillas or terrorist organizations, the death toll also tends to be lopsided, even in cases where the modern armies are defeated. The morality of the cause is rarely assessed by the body count, nor is the legality of the means employed. The Allies killed many more German and Japanese combatants than they lost themselves, and many, many more civilians. Even more lopsided have been the casualty counts in wars conducted by Western states since the end of the cold war: in ex-Yugoslavia, Iraq, Panama, Mali, Sierra Leone, and elsewhere.

In any case, the comparative casualty count doesn't have much to do with the legal definition of proportionality, which, as the International Committee of the Red Cross spells out, requires that "the effects of the means and methods of warfare used must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought."

This legal concept is certainly confusing and far from intuitive. To an untrained ear, it really does sound like it might be a matter of comparing casualty counts; even to a trained ear, the concept is difficult to work with. Collateral damage from a military operation must be proportional to the intended military outcome—but what is the desired proportion? The easy examples that are usually offered in legal analyses—wiping out a village to locate one fighter is obviously not proportional—look nothing like the dilemmas that commanders in the field face. What to do about a weapons facility hidden in a home? Should soldiers pursue attackers not in uniform in a residential area? Should a high-value military target located somewhere with reliable but not certain intelligence that no civilians are nearby be attacked? What about crucial military infrastructure that also has a secondary civil application? Resolving these dilemmas is difficult; and with intelligence that might be faulty and the general fog of war and a lack of sympathy for the side they are fighting against, they might look very different in a reckoning after hostilities end, outside the theatre of combat, by a nonpartisan observer.

[Jwb]

It matters on a thousand different levels. This brutal, horrific and tragic war started with jihadists butchering Israeli civilians, with supporters of the "Palestinian cause" the world over ecstatic.

Israel's military response is aimed at eradicating a jihadist group that went into unprecedented efforts to hide behind civilian population. There's a huge difference between a military that's willing to accept civilian casualties to eliminate terrorists and terrorists whose stated goal (reiterated on numerous occasions during this war) is to eliminate Israel.

One of the astonishing features of the "Palestinian cause" is the unwillingness to concede they have an active part in their predicament. Either by them or their supporters. Every time it begins with the righteous fervor of "resistance" and then shifts into pure victimhood. Zero reflection on the causal link between the two. 

The images coming out of Gaza are horrifying. But wallowing in pure victimhood will only assure another round of this.

I get where you are coming from but allow me to retort. It's fair and true to say that Hamas are worse than Israel and more blatantly murderous in their ideology and intention. It's also just as obvious that they're not even close to as capable of wreaking the sort of havoc and destruction as the IDF is. So it is this mutually reinforcing disparity in both tactics and capabilities which defines the nature of this conflict.

One prime example of this would be the constant discussion over Hamas using human shields. This is the usual retort to any reference to the high body count on the Palestinian side.

Now to be clear I'm perfectly willing to concede they use human shields. It's just that if you really consider the nature of asymmetric warfare that is being waged, it's very obvious why. Any sort of armed resistance that faces off against a better armed and better funded occupying force uses subterfuge and deception to make up for that disparity and use other forms of leverage that they have to tilt the playing field back in their direction.

You can have for example in Afghanistan the mujahideen fighters who not only used the terrain to their advantage to launch ambush attacks against the Soviet occupiers, but also relied in the Soviets never knowing who exactly the enemy was. The same dynamic existed roughly in Vietnam and Iraq. Although there are to be sure differences to be found between these conflicts, this one basic trend does hold true.

And then you have to consider the added variable of the attitude of locals and those sympathetic to them abroad toward the occupying force also being a powerful tool to be weaponized by the rebel factions. This was undoubtedly true in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, where Muslim fighters around the world were inspired to go and fight the Soviet occupiers. But it's even more true in Palestine. Hamas derives whatever credibility they do have from precisely the kind of footage they released on Oct 7.

Not only that they are perceived as the least front of resistance capable of doing any actual damage to the enemy, but also they rely on the response. They rely on the IDF to come in and obliterate Gaza and remind the local population of why they support them. And just like Al Qaeda wanted the American response in Afghanistan (Iraq was just a freebie we decided to throw them on top it), Hamas wanted Israel's response in Gaza. Maybe they both got more than they bargained for and brought on their own demise. But does that mean we won? Mission accomplished?

What is the game plan for Gaza after Hamas is eradicated? The podcast you had e listen to insisted that this is the wrong time to ask this question. I'm sorry but this question needs to be first and foremost in your mind if you are at all serious about presenting this war as a means for long term peace and stability. The only real reason to insist on not asking it yet is because you know you don't have a palatable answer.

Getting back to the idea of which side is more blatantly genocidal vs which side is actually capable of genocide.. which scenario seems more likely at the moment? Ask yourself that really. Because out of all the speculative outcomes in Gaza, an actual expulsion of the native population would probably serve Israel's shrewd security concerns better than anything else I've heard floated out there.

Netanyahu has made a point of rejecting even any semblance of lip service toward a two state solution that his American benefactors try to put in his mouth, so I don't know what to tell you. They are specifically going with the shoot first, ask questions later approach and then expecting our undying sympathy and support for whatever they need to do. I'm not sold.

[Jwb]

You're not wrong, @DJChameleon .

As I posted, and published by the International Court of Justice; 25,700 Palestinians have been killed, over 63,000 injuries have been reported, over 360,000 housing units have been destroyed or partially damaged and approximately 1.7 million persons have been internally displaced. An unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger.

A terrorist attack is answered with an attack on close to two million people. It is disproportionate.

You won't convince  Jadis of this, though.

to be fair to jadis, the idea isn't that you kill x amount in exchange for the x amount of people who were killed in a terrorist attack. That's ridiculous and barbaric. It would be that you have a certain military objective you consider vital for your security and are willing to take on x amount of potential deaths as a result. But the rub is what is that military objective and is it worth it?

[degrassi.knoll]

I'm not surprised they're saying it. We also know Israel did a climate change in Gaza, as well as a capitalism. Not just the genocide and soil degradation.

Neither am I surprised by your absolute confidence about the intentions of a country you know nothing about except that it's ontologically evil.

You say though Israel is flooding "Palestine". I thought it was the Gaza Strip. Want to explain why it's Palestine? What is Palestine?

But the experts!

[degrassi.knoll]

What I would like to know is why Biden is deploying troops to Jordan under the guise of caring about the lives of 3 national guard members.

I'm sure the geographical leverage is unrelated.

[Jwb]

What I would like to know is why Biden is deploying troops to Jordan under the guise of caring about the lives of 3 national guard members.

I'm sure the geographical leverage is unrelated.

The situation is continuing to escalate between  Iran and all their proxies Vs team America. Ww3 is the last fuckin thing sleepy joe needs to instill confidence in his leadership in the run up to this election, but we're slowly meandering toward it like a roomba vacuum.

[degrassi.knoll]

The situation is continuing to escalate between  Iran and all their proxies Vs team America. Ww3 is the last fuckin thing sleepy joe needs to instill confidence in his leadership in the run up to this election, but we're slowly meandering toward it like a roomba vacuum.

Biden himself being a slowly meandering roomba for all this time would explain a lot