@chiraag

Nuance is everything... In israel you have a conflict where both sides have been brutalized by the other in unacceptable ways. Not a single person who has lived in israel on either side has not had someone they knew and loved murdered.

While I do side with the Palestinians largely because they were there first 80 years ago, the people who were "there first" are pretty much all dead now, and the generation on both sides who are there have been there, side by side, for their whole lives. Both sides brutalize the other, and both sides should be condemned for that.

But when you have a situation where both sides have been victimized then when one side calls out the other, if you attack them for that opinion then you are both protecting a victim (the other side) while attacking a victim. Thats the crux of it, both sides are victims, both sides are terrorists. Thats somewhat unique in most conflicts.

@chiraag @freemo Do the Rohingya have their own government that carried out an attack on ethnic Burmese, killing thousands, raping, and kidnapping? If so, Burma might be reasonable in attacking military Rohingya targets as a part of the war that the Rohingya started. Civilian casualties of course would be expected, and we should all pressure Burma to minimize those.

As far as I know, nothing remotely like any of that happened there.

@ech @freemo The stated reason of all of the murdering and displacement was a spate of terrorist/guerilla attacks on Burmese military outposts. Except...it was mainly just a pretext to do what Myanmar has wanted to do for a long time.

@ech @freemo Also, that sounds an awful lot like collective punishment, blaming all Palestinians for something the majority don't like and can't control.

@chiraag @freemo What's the upshot of that?

@ech @freemo That the rhetoric around all Palestinians being complicit (or at least not anti-Hamas enough) that they're worth sacrificing in service of destroying Hamas is very similar to the rhetoric used against Rohingya in Myanmar.

@chiraag @freemo Oh I see. Well, I think anyone who is serious knows the vast majority of Palestinians are less than thrilled with Hamas, to say the least: https://twitter.com/cvaldary/status/1718803547968483437 puts it well.

It feels like you're getting at a moral comparison between the Myanmar military and the IDF in these two situations. They seem quite different. If that wasn't your point, beg pardon; please ignore this paragraph.

Anyway: pretty much every war ever, just or not, ends up looking like collective punishment, unfortunately. The only answer I know of is not to start a war? It seems like it is too late for that here.

@ech I'm interested in how frequently I'm seeing defenses of Israel's collective punishment of Palestinians as being the same as any other war, as being inevitable in war, as (implicitly) therefore an inappropriate target for criticism, which is all to say that all wars involve war crimes and not only is there nothing to be done about it, but it also can't be discussed as a reflection of the cruelty of the entities that perpetuate it. It's almost as if it's imagined that there's a qualifier for collective punishment's designation as a war crime for "but, you know, war is messy, so do whatever you want." Here, for instance, you've responded to an accusation that Israel is committing a war crime by framing it as an inevitability, as though "the war" originated outside of Israel (an interesting treatment of history as beginning whenever Palestinians began resisting occupation) and whatever Israel does in response to this external catalyst can't be criticized beyond a vague "war is bad" with "so don't resist or you'll get what's coming to you" implicitly attached. Yes, lots of children are being killed, but what can you do? War is messy, and war crimes are inevitable. It's an interesting stance given defenses of Israel as uniquely invested in human rights.

@claude_cahun well I think I made it pretty clear up thread that anything Israel is doing is definitely an appropriate target for criticism. I'm maybe not saying the same things you heard someone else say? (As a voter in the US, this criticism is important for me to do.)

The point here is just that simplistically casting any civilian casualties as "collective punishment" is maybe not helpful without further analysis. I appreciate your comment because you aren't doing that.

You make a good point of course about history not beginning on October 7th. But still, my take on things at this point is that Hamas cannot be allowed to continue to exist as is, so the IDF seems to need to carry out this military operation. The rest of us should be closely watching how they do that, to minimize civilian suffering, of course.

Maybe that's wrong, though: there are reasons to think a military operation can't help. I don't know.

@ech I don't know what you're referring to when you talk about your criticism of Israel. I'm responding directly to just one comment, in which you said "pretty much every war ends up looking like collective punishment." This statement suggests that Israel's approach to war is akin to any other country's approach to war. What this neglects--submerges, really--is that Israel has the power to prevent Gazans from accessing resources water and electricity, and that representatives of the Israeli government (along with its defenders) have communicated that Israel is intentionally withholding these resources in order to pressure a specific response from Hamas. In other words, the people of Gaza are being collectively punished, with many declaring that it is correct for Israel to do this, since Palestinians in total are being described as collectively responsible for Hamas's actions. Even setting aside civilian casualties from bombardment, which significantly outstrip Israeli casualties on October 7th, we must be able to agree that the people of Gaza are being collectively punished by the Israeli government, which has intentionally restricted their access to necessary resources, including food, water, and medicine. To say otherwise is to stretch semantics beyond reason.

Of course, I don't want to set aside Palestinian casualties, even momentarily, because that would require ignoring that Israel has decided to bomb hospitals, ambulances, schools, mosques, residential buildings, fishing boats, and refugee camps, all under the figleaf of targeting Hamas, with civility-minded commenters like you suggesting that this is inevitable and necessary. This bombardment of one of the single most densely populated regions in the world is only legible as a necessary act of self defense if it is decided in advance that every Israeli life is worth at least ten Palestinian lives. This is, of course, how math tends to work with this topic. For example, you've talked about Hamas as "a baby killing rapist terrorist group of thugs," suggesting that Israel's siege and bombardment of Gaza is a necessary evil in order to eliminate Hamas, even if it means killing babies to complete the job. (With vague reassurances that you'll criticize Israel when the time comes.) Yet the torture, imprisonment, rape, and killing enacted by the Israeli government (and civilian settlers, some of whom are currently using this opportunity to attack and displace Palestinians in the West Bank) is not reason enough to eliminate this particular group of house stealing olive tree destroying baby killing rapist torture murder freaks. It must therefore be the case that Palestinians are worth less than Israelis.

Speaking on rhetoric: I keep getting complimented by defenders of Israel for being reasonable! I'm frustrated by this, negl. If anything, my even-handedness is an embarrassment. I should be insulting you and everyone else who does the work of defending a genocide, rather than trying to coax you toward morality.

@claude_cahun "your criticism of Israel" Specifically here I mean like questioning whether they could do more to protect innocents. More broadly things like due process and fairly enforcing laws and so on.

The rest of your note... that's what I was trying to respond to with my previous note, so I'm not sure what to say to move this forward.