#Hamas today released further 13 hostages, most of which are children, including two 4 years old.

While some hail Hamas for apparently being the most merciful and humanitarian hostage-taker in the world, let that sink in: you've got adult men and women who take 4 years old kids as hostages...

@kravietz

There is no excuse for this and no one should be praising hamas.

Just as there was no excuse when the IDF used children of a similar age as human shields and got called to international court on war crimes for it (And refused to show)..

In the end anyone taking **either** side as the good guy is morally corrupt. The hammas are evil, the IDF is evil, full stop.

@freemo @kravietz > In the end anyone taking **either** side as the good guy is morally corrupt. The hammas are evil, the IDF is evil, full stop.

Would you be willing to admit that one side is worse than the other?

@realcaseyrollins

Absolutely, as the invaders and occupiers the Israel side is significantly worse morally.

@kravietz

@realcaseyrollins

At this point its not relevant that the Israelis are the worse... they both commit war crimes and terrorism... Debating what murderer and torturer is the nicer one has little interest to me.

But if you insist then yea, the one who started the fight,a nd did so with a mass genocide is very clearly the worse of the two, regardless of what the other side did after being occupied.

If i break into someones house and chain the whole family up in the bathroom and punch them in the face every day, and they respond by kicking me in the balls when they get the chance, I'm still the worse one, I cant be praised for "taking the high oad and not kicking them in the balls" when im the one who came in, took over their home, and locked them into a small bathroom. It doesnt make kicking me in the balls right, but it does clearly make me the wrong one as the theif and initial abuser.

@kravietz

@freemo

You seem to have a lot of good ideas about the war. So letโ€™s assume youโ€™re Israel, itโ€™s 7 October, you woke up to the barrage of rockets from Gaza and Hamas fighters slaughtering Israeli civilians. Whatโ€™s you plan?

@realcaseyrollins

@kravietz

I would issue a public apology for invading a country that wasnt mine and occupying it for 80 years and commiting genocide, war crimes and terrorism. I would also state that palestine has done the same and neither of us are right. I would then offer a complete withdrawl of Israel from the region, a dissolution of the state under the condition that 1) all hostages are returned 2) all israelis are allowed an appropriate amount of time to leave the country and 3) any israelis that decide to stay who were born on the land be granted citizenship in Palestine and an equal vote.

Once palestine agrees and the hostages released I would dissolve the state and leave.

Now in all reality neither me nor anyone has complete control to decide the situation. So in any practical sense that will never happen, nor am I expecting it to. But youa sked what I would do if i had control and that would be it.

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo

I would dissolve the state and leave.

Okay, sounds like a great plan indeed. Plans like this are the main reason why the war is now going on for 80 years, and Hamas continuously wrecks any agreed actual peace plans.

@realcaseyrollins

@kravietz

Your response makes absolutely no sense.. If you dissolve the state and leave there is no state to have a war WITH... so no the war didnt continue for 80 years because of ideas like this, that makes no sense.

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo

But postulating 10 million people who built the whole country for several generation does make sense?

@realcaseyrollins

@kravietz

In my scenario the israelis still own whatever they own and live there. They just are under the government that actually owns the land, palestine. As I said one of the conditions is anyone born ont he land is allowed to stay and given citizenship, this also assumes they retain whatever private land they own so long as they bought it fairly from the palestinian that owned it.

Obviously any infrastructure that exists through theft does not make sense to be allowed to keep.

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo

I think the realism of your plan is best assessed through Hamas position on Holocaust and best illustrated the number of Jews living in Gaza.

@realcaseyrollins

@kravietz

Not sure why any of that matters.. its their land, they did nothing to deserve loosing it and were simply invaded. So until the occupying force leaves and especially when they are the ones overpowered and forced into ghettos,then there is absolutely no chance for the Israelis to be the good guys.

The whole "but we built up the area after we stole it and killed everyone" is a pretty damn poor excuse for why they should keep it.

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo

Your statement "it's their land" is exclusively based on 1947 as an arbitrary cut-off date. If Palestinians "were invaded" by Jews, then what in your opinion happened to Jerusalem in 1187?

I won't even comment on your postulate that the extremely antisemitic policy of Hamas "doesn't matter", because it's precisely the part that makes your plan so detached from reality.

@realcaseyrollins

@kravietz

Your statement “it’s their land” is exclusively based on 1947 as an arbitrary cut-off date.

Not at all, that is not how I determine whose land it is.

I determine whose land it is by who can show the longest multi-generational ties to the land. If you can show you were born on the land and lived there for the last 20 generations its your land… some guy who has some 1000 year old claim to the land he cant show a clear right of ownership to then it isnt his land.

If you can show you are the direct descendant and prove it with paper work of someone 1000 years ago taking your land from you, and you can show specifically what plot of land you owned, then yea, that land should be yours. Virtually no individual jew can do that. In fact most jews are so intermarried they cant even say they have any connection to the jews at all other than it being a religion they practiced for multiple generations. But to connect them as inheretors of land from 1000 years ago, not even remotely close.

Meanwhile the palestinians, most of those show they have lived on that land and have a clear chain of ownership for hundreds of years.

If Palestinians “were invaded” by Jews, then what in your opinion happened to Jerusalem in 1187?

Something that has nothing to do with modern times and no one can even show any heritage connection to those events on either side, soits irrelevant.

I won’t even comment on your postulate that the extremely antisemitic policy of Hamas “doesn’t matter”, because it’s precisely the part that makes your plan so detached from reality.

I am glad you are refusing to comment on something I never said or even remotely implied… smart move.

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo

> I determine whose land

Well, except the very concept of "land ownership" is a social construct and in the society populating Palestine and Israel nobody cares about how you "determine the ownership" using carefully cherry-picked criteria.

The reason why I mentioned this was to point out that the question of "whose land" can be seen in two semantic spaces, which are largely exclusive:

* legal, in which case you need to base your analysis on the international law, which includes all peace agreements signed by Palestine, latest being 1993 Oslo Accord, which makes your proposal of "dissolution of Israel" irrelevant, except for some specific extrajudicial land takeover by settlers
* moral, in which case you can go as far back as you wish, but granted complex history of Middle East you loose on each Muslim conquest of Jerusalem (there were many of them) โ€” using the very arguments you raised against "Israeli occupation"! โ€” and you also loose ultimately on the *first* Muslim siege of Jerusalem simply because Islam appeared 600 years after Christianity and that was several thousands after Jahwe religion

In any case, you can't honestly pick and mix from these semantic systems.

> Virtually no individual jew can do that.

But Palestinians can?

> comment on something I never said or even remotely implied

I pointed out at, if that needs clarification, that no Jews live under Hamas rule, which is kind of obvious, granted their viciously antisemitic stance.

Which makes your whole plan unrealistic as on the hypothetical dissolution of Israel we would immediately witness the largest pogrom in history.

You said "it doesn't matter".

@realcaseyrollins

@kravietz

Well, except the very concept of “land ownership” is a social construct and in the society populating Palestine and Israel nobody cares about how you “determine the ownership” using carefully cherry-picked criteria.

Sure its a social construct, but the criteria I picked is more or less the criteria the world uses rather consistently. Plus it makes logical sense. Much more so than your idea of “well 2000 years ago some people who might be remotely related to me were here”

The reason why I mentioned this was to point out that the question of “whose land” can be seen in two semantic spaces, which are largely exclusive:

I;d argue botht he legal and the moral are fairly well addressed by the typical standard I put forth. You are the citizen of the land you are born to. Your ties to the land are based on how many generations of birth that may go back as well.

In any case, you can’t honestly pick and mix from these semantic systems.

I didnt, legally I made clear there had to be a clear chain of ownership and/or presence on the land to claim to be the owner, and whoever can show the earliest form of this wins. And morally the rules are largely the same, whoever is born there, is part of there, that is the natural default.

But Palestinians can?

Yes absolutely. After spending 2 years in the region I can tell you almost every pallestinian, well a lot anyway, have a very proud heritage. In their living room it is common to show a family tree of all the family members born in that house and on that land. They often love to show you their papers and family history and are quite proud to show their ties to the land over many hundreds of years.

Jews on the other hand rarely can show ties to the land, the overwhelming majority can only show ties through an invading force in modern history and can not show a natural connection to the land. You do have some palestinian jews of course who can show ties to the land, but even then it is as a palestinian who is a jew, not as an israelite. Which would give them a right to palestinian citizenship and a home but not an argument for a jewish state.

I pointed out at, if that needs clarification, that no Jews live under Hamas rule, which is kind of obvious, granted their viciously antisemitic stance.

Then a jew has two options… 1) dont stay if you dont like the region, especially if you are the invader .. or 2) stay and change things.

When a country has crime and hates a certain group thats not an excuse to commit genocide and take over. It is an excuse to clean up your society and try to eliminate the hammas to create a unified country for all palestinians, both jewish palestinians and arab.

Which makes your whole plan unrealistic as on the hypothetical dissolution of Israel we would immediately witness the largest pogrom in history.

Not if the jews left, which is what most would and should do… I mean maybe you shouldnt commit genocide on the natives if you dont want to be hated as a people, that would be a nice first place to start.. and now that the hatred is there you can leave, or you can take the risk to try and stay and make things right.. but the risks and the unfortunate nature of that choice has no one to blame but you (the israelis) for committing genocide in the first place.

Its like saying “but if they stop committing genocide then everyone might hate them and be violent towards them”… sure… the answer to that isnt to let them continue to commit genocide.

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo

> 2) stay and change things.

You can't "change things" if you're dead, which state is consistent with the Hamas' policy towards all Jews.

@realcaseyrollins

@kravietz

Sure you can. in fact dying for a cause tends to cause much greater change than surviving it.. we call those martyr.

And yea, people might die, and that is sad.. but they also created the hate towards them directly via their actions.. they killed to make people hate them, so while i dont want to see violence against them I also wont use the fact that they are hated for murder as an excuse to allow them to murder.

When you are responsible for creating hatred, violence, and crime, partly due to the very poverty you intentionally inflict, then there are consequences. Cleaning up crime even in america results in a lot of cops dying, that is just part of the process to fix things, so if you dont want cops dying create a society that has less violence rather than complaining about a society being violent when you are the one who made that happen.

Remember the Hamas didnt exist prior to the israel invasion. Also remember several Israeli terrorists groups arose pre-israel long before the hamas even took shape.

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo @kravietz I am honestly somewhat astonished at this take.

> And yea, people might die, and that is sad.. but they also created the hate towards them directly via their actions

> When you are responsible for creating hatred, violence, and crime, partly due to the very poverty you intentionally inflict, then there are consequences.

People supporting genocide against Palestinians could very easily say the same thing.

@realcaseyrollins

They can, and they wouldnt be wrong. I have said many times the hamas doing what they did was a stupid move as it generated hate agains tthem and weakened their cause... dont commit war crimes, it makes people hate you... and that hate is not unjustified.

As I've said both sides are wrong and deserve to be hated. One is just more wrong than the other as the invader.

@kravietz

@freemo

You call it "stupid", they call it compliance with their political program. Faced with such a massive misjudgment on your side, I'm quite curious how you would describe mass killings that would follow the hypothetical dissolution of state of Israel โ€” probably "silly" would be a suitable word?

Also note it wouldn't apply exclusively to Jews. In Gaza #Hamas was killing equally Palestinian supporters of peace with Israel, atheists, gay people and their political opponents from Fatah, women who slept with men before marriage (but not men, it doesn't count as adultery) and a dozen of other categories of Hamas law offenders. I suppose you would happily score all these deaths as "martyrs" and just move on.

@realcaseyrollins

@kravietz

> You call it "stupid", they call it compliance with their political program. Faced with such a massive misjudgment on your side, I'm quite curious how you would describe mass killings that would follow the hypothetical dissolution of state of Israel โ€” probably "silly" would be a suitable word?

No not silly, wrong.. but you lie int he bed you make. If you dont want to be killed by the natives then dont try to exterminate the natives for 80 years. While them trying to kill you is wrong, it should be **expected** as a consequence of your actions. The fact that you were given the choice to leave is quite humane. I'd expect and want most to leave, as well they should since they should have never came as an invading force in the first place.

If i run intop china with a gun and mass murder 1000 people I shouldnt be surprised when a mob tries to kill me in retaliation. Its still wrong, but expected.

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo @kravietz > No not silly, wrong.. but you lie int he bed you make.

I think you should be more careful with the logic you're choosing here, this to some extent justifies out-of-proportion responses from #Israel to Palestianian instigations.

@realcaseyrollins

It justifies nothing, but it does make it an expected response... there is a huge difference between these two you two seem to be missing.

The world is unfair, when a cop pulls me over I kiss his ass because while morally I should be able to say "fuck you" in practice I expect that will make my life harder. Sure the cop is in the wrong, but doesnt change the fact im spending the night in jail. When i make my choices I must do so being aware of what is likely to happen, not what is justified in happening.

Same here. you murder a population you should **expect** them to try to murder you. It is wrong, and in an ideal world they wont. But in all reality we know how the world works and we know they will.

@kravietz

@freemo @kravietz The line between "here's the justification" and "well what did you expect" is thin enough for few people to appreciate it, even if it is legitimate.

Regardless of whether or not I agree that #Israel did all of these things you're saying they did, the Palestinians (and more in the Middle East BTW, I have read #OsamaBinLaden's #LetterToAmerica and he agrees with your points in regards to #Palestine and #Israel) believe this to be so and their actions make sense in the context of their understanding of what has happened.

@realcaseyrollins

The line is pretty damn thick the two arent even remotely related.

If i jump in the water with weights on im going to drown thats to be expected... no one in their right mind would think because I said that it is "close" to saying "people who swim with weights on deserve to die".

More so when i explain clearly and repeatidly the distinction.

No worry this isnt a misinterpretation i can give a pass on when it is belligerent.

@kravietz

@freemo @kravietz I'm not saying there's no valid difference, but that most people won't care. This is what got #Hasanabi banned from #Twitch, if you recall, as he said that the #USA deserved 9/11 because "we brought it on ourselves".

He was certainly too strong with his words, but he was right that America's interventions in the Middle East created the enemies that caused 9/11. There's a difference between admitting that and justifying the terrorist attacks themselves, but most people just won't care.

@realcaseyrollins

If someone wont care about a distinction that they should care about, and intentionally misunderstand me or misinterprit then thats on them, I care very little.

The fact is these two are hugely different things to anyone being honest with themselves. So if you treat them as the same then thats your problem, not mine.

As for 911, no we didnt bring it on ourselves. But we did make it a point to ensure we responded exactly the way the terrorists wanted and literally fell in line and immediately let the terrorists win.

@kravietz

@freemo @kravietz It's not about me not caring about that distinction, but your responses are at times too simplistic to make that distinction clear. Going back to #Hasanabi, I didn't even completely understand the distinction he was making until his uncle #CenkUygur had him on #TYT to explain himself afterwards.

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@realcaseyrollins

Well thats fair. I do often pick my words carefully and expect people to read my words carefully. Most people dont. But i give people the benefit of the doubt that they can ask or i can clarify and then they will interprit me more how I intend.

So while I do understand the distinction getting lost at first once I was explicit about the distinction then its on you to recognize the mis communication and moving foward be more aware of the distinction I am trying to convey.

@kravietz

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