this post was submitted on 06 May 2024
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By "boots on the ground" do you mean killing children?
"Think of the children" has rarely ever been used rationally and your comment is no exception. No, that's obviously not what I'm saying and you know that. The sooner the war is over, the fewer children will die.
So you mean "kill children faster".
this is not "think of the children". its "tens of thousands of children have died, and will die, as a result of the actions of the Israeli government". we aren't appealing to the potential harm that might come to children, we are recognizing the current and ongoing slaughter of children and adults happening in Gaza.
They would all be still alive if Hamas hadn't massacred their way through Israel on October 7. Every single nation on Earth would have reacted to this with a full-on war - there is no other way any nation can react to this.
People are just under the delusion that somehow, clean wars with few or no civilian casualties are even possible. They are not, especially not against an enemy that does everything they can to increase the suffering of their own civilians.
I find it a bit bizarre that people keep using this talking point when there's ample evidence that other countries do not react to terrorism by slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians.
Many countries have shown themselves able to respect international law. Britain for example managed not to massacre the children of Ireland en masse when it was dealing with the IRA.
again, deflecting blame. it doesn't matter who started it, it doesn't matter what "every single nation on Earth" would have done (although I think there's plenty of examples of other nations not doing the kinds of things Israel is doing in response to a terror attack), its doesn't even really matter whether we call it a war or a genocide, we can see it, and it is wrong. killing tens of thousands of children is wrong, inducing starvation and famine is wrong, destroying hospitals is wrong. if this is war, than i want to kill war, if this is what nations do, then there should be no nations.
i've heard this talking point from other Zionists and Israel-apologists. that this is just what war is like, that casualties are inevitable, that against an enemy like this that Israel's actions are necessary. fuck that noise. if this is what war is like, it is our obligation to seek peace at every opportunity. if killing doctors and journalists, families and childrens, if that is justified in your worldview, then that worldview is not worthy of respect, not worthy of consideration. whatever you call what Israel is doing, however you rationalize it to yourself, these things are useless platitudes. it does not matter who threw the first stone. it does not matter that Hamas has done terrible things to Israeli civilians, any logic, any excuse that leads us to accept mass starvation as an acceptable practice is not worth following. i want to live in a world where no children die of hunger, where people can live and die in peace, and the state of Israel has positioned itself against those goals, is pursuing an agenda that has and will kill innocent people.
if you can recognize that this is what war is like, can recognize the harm being done to the Palestinian people, you are morally obligated to oppose it, if only out of self interest. i don't want to die of starvation. i don't want my friends and family to be bombed, driven from their homes, killed in the streets. jailed and tortured. and if i want that, i cannot stand by as it happens to others, cannot accept the platitude of necessity. because if it necessary here, it can be necessary elsewhere. if we can justify war, we cannot expect to find peace.
"Think of the children" as a phrase is meant to satirize the fallacious appeals of "moral panic" arguments in support of conservative social values.
Your idea that it also covers arguments for literally not killing children is odd. There's nothing necessarily fallacious about singling out children as a subset that it's especially important to avoid killing.
In this case half the civilians are children and they are being killed, so it's a reasonable thing to want to stop.
The implication of your use of the phrase here is that no one should consider children's wellbeing even when real harm is being done to them. I find that idea dystopian and inhumane.