this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023

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207

Israel-Palestine war: Rising Gaza football star and father killed in Israeli strike (www.middleeasteye.net)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

37 comments fedilink hide all child comments

MiddleEastEye.net

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago

Israel, STOP KILLING CIVILIANS!!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And as usual Israel doesn't care about non-Jewish humans.

[+] [email protected] -31 points 10 months ago (3 children)

And Hamas actually wants to eradicate all Jews - what's your point?

You surely can question stuff like shutting off the power since that's a war crime but if Hamas is using civilian buildings for their military then they make those buildings valid targets during war (other than schools and music festivals which Hamas targeted)

Sure Israel is not a knight in shining armour (far from it) but after what Hamas did they have all right to retaliate and the moral high ground as Hamas deliberately puts their civilians in the line of fire to fuel hate against Israel and make every move very hard for Israel because of that risk of collateral damage.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Your emotional reasoning to justify Isreal's genocide is the same emotional reasoning Hamas uses to justify their terror attacks.

Palestinians have faced ethnic cleansing and expansionism by Isreal, which poses an existential threat for them.

You're saying Isreal is justified in mass murdering innocent civilians because a separate entity (Hamas) poses an existential threat to Isreal.

Well, let's apply that same logic to the opposing side..

By your very own logic, Hamas must be justified in their slaughter of innocent Isrealis, because the IDF and Isreali 'settlers' pose an existential threat them.

Both sides are guilty of horrendous acts, and the innocent civilians on both sides are the ones suffering. And there are ignorant people like yourself who fall into emotional (not logical) reasoning, which makes one feel more justified and sure of themselves.

But in reality, you're clouded by an inherent bias that allows you to dehumanize the innocent Palestinians and justify genocide and war crimes.

The rest of us who are able to maintain perspective are watching in horror at the evil acts being committed by both Isreal and Hamas, and sickened by people like you whose thinking has become so poisoned.

Shame on Hamas. Shame on Isreal. And shame on the people like yourself on both sides, who try to justify putrid acts of evil.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There is such a thing as a rule of international law that defines what's a valid target during war. A school is not, a music festival also not. Military bases are always a target even if they are within otherwise protected buildings.

I'm not dehumanizing Palestinians. I took part in protests for humanitarian aid in the past and even donated to their cause.

I feel people like you always see an ideal world where there are only perfect solutions. I've yet to read people arguing like that write what would've been a better option after the massacre. Just ignore that that group just slaughtered civilians and took hostages certainly is not an option as they'd feel motivated to do it again and it's only reasonable to seek out justice.
So what's a better option than telling people to evacuate and target bases used by Hamas afterwards? Going in with the army on the ground surely is far worse for everyone involved.

I know that Israel has the upper hand in this and it's always easier to support the underdog but in this both sites are shitty and Israel is by far less so than Hamas. The fact that civilians are there suffering inbetween is completely tragic - but a lot of them are supporting or at least enabling Hamas (which is why Egypt won't open their border for refugees).

The only reason for that attack by Hamas was to end the official talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia for peace in the region - that alone should tell you who has the moral high ground in this conflict. There's a reason Iran is financing Hamas like this since they can't accept a country like Israel existing and if they manage to make peace with more of the surrounding countries then it'll be very hard to change that fact that Israel has a right to exist.

Sure Netanjahu is an asshole and the radical settlers are only pouring oil in the fire but in the end it was Hamas that officially made it their target to eradicate Israel which made them quit any peace talks.

My heart is with the civilians there but in the end it's kind of similar to the allies bombing Germany after their people first supported the Nazis and then at least stayed complicit. Sure there were civilian deaths of innocents, too, but in the big picture it seems justified doesn't it? And I say that as a German living in one of the cities that was hit hardest.

If people are supporting or at least accepting a regime like the one in Gaza that's using them as shields there is only so much you can do if the target is to get rid of that regime.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Proximity shielding is bullshit and used to justify killing and DEHUMANIZING Palestinians. The idea of people being human shields in their own homes is genocidal bullshit used to justify killing them. Israel tops this list.

I will keep that in CAPS, thanks. I don't care how many times you donated or protested. It doesn't change what Israel does which you sit here defending.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The idea of people being human shields in their own homes is genocidal bullshit used to justify killing them.

So how do you call it if hamas is building their bases of operation in civilian buildings or launch their rockets from schools and hospitals exactly because they KNOW it's impossible to target them there without also hitting civilians?

Why is egypt not accepting refugees? Because they know that a big part of the palestinians are actually supporting hamas and are not just victims here and they don't want to deal with the risk of those people radicalizing themselves further within Egypt and having to deal with that.

And as for the dehumanizing part: which party did deliberately chose to deliberately attack civilians and not "just" accepted them as collateral damage? Sure the latter is also horrible and should be kept to an absolute minimum but the first is absolutely indefensible. There's a reason why at every other pro-palestine rally right now there are people shouting to exterminate all the jews and why jews are scared wearing their kippah again: this whole thing is not just about standing with civilians in gaza but actually coming from an anti-semitic point a lot of the time.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

I am going to copy this that I wrote long ago about proximity shielding. Proximity shielding and the idea of human shields is the excuse Israel is using to completely wipe out full Palestinian families.

So how do you call it if hamas is building their bases of operation in civilian buildings or launch their rockets from schools and hospitals exactly because they KNOW it’s impossible to target them there without also hitting civilians?

Israel should just not fucking hit civilians then. Who in the fuck shoots through a baby to get to an enemy?

If you check the Wikipedia page for human shields:

Authors Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini, elaborating on their book, Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire, discuss "proximate shields", humans as shields merely due to proximity to belligerents and assert that this type has become "by far the most prominent type of shield in contemporary discourse". They say that the proximate shielding accusation has been used by States to cover-up war crimes against civilian populations and that human rights organizations frequently fail to question this charge which they claim is being improperly used to justify civilian deaths.[7]

There are several pieces that discuss this idea, but here are some.

In this analysis piece of proximity shielding, we read:

Our research suggests that human rights and humanitarian organizations have been complicit with this framing exercise and that it is urgent to have a frank conversation about human shields and the legal and political implications of the human shielding accusation. Both in our book and in several academic articles, we have shown that hi-tech States spend considerable resources on media campaigns and mobilize legal and military expertise to justify their use of lethal violence in cities where civilians are trapped.[ii] We describe how human shields, and particularly the charge of proximate shielding, are being widely used by States and their militaries to justify civilian deaths in asymmetric conflicts, and how it has become a major tool in what we have called the ‘erosion’ of the civilian. **

If you turn your eyes back to the wiki page I first linked under the section on Israel and Palestine:

Israel has used the charge, in what has been termed its 'infowar' on social media,[56] to explain the high ratio of civilian vs military casualties in its conflict with Gaza. In Operation Cast Lead 100 Gazans died for every Israeli, and the civilian ratio was 400 Gazans to 1 Israeli. Israeli spokesmen explained the difference by alleging that Hamas used civilians as shields. It has been argued that no evidence has come to light proving these claims.[57][58][59][60] In September 2004, Justice Aharon Barak presiding over the Israeli Supreme Court, issued a demand that the IDF desist from the practice of using Palestinians as human shields, and in October outlawed the procedure.[61] The independent human rights NGOs B'tselem and Amnesty International have stated that ample evidence exists in conflicts after that date that Israel has employed Palestinians as human shields. According to B'tselem, the practice goes back to 1967.[55][61]

Finally, this article discusses the politics surrounding the idea of human shields

By these means, entire populations and vast cities are reduced to war space. Prevailing hierarchies of humanity ensure that some places and some people are far more likely to find themselves expendable through the twisted logics and framings of the human shield.

I hope this makes my point clear but basically: Israel is using proximity shielding (aka accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields) to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and has itself had to outlaw the use of Palestinians as human shields because it was a normal part of Israeli military operations and totally allowed until all the human rights groups finally succeeded in outlawing it, and yet Israel still sometimes uses it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Do you even realize that you failed to refute my entire argument? You just wrote a long Red Herring.

Everything you said here is 100% irrelevant to the fact that your logic used to justify the genocide of Palestinians is the same logic used to justify the terror attacks on Isreali citizens.

That was my argument.

Logic doesn't care what your feelings are or what international laws dictate. Your argumemt's framework used to justify Isreal's genocide can be flipped and used in the very same way to justify Hamas' actions. I've already demonstrated that above.

I could argue against your other points here, but that's not necessary when you're breaking the sacred law of non-contradiction. You're argument can't be true for Israel and false for Hamas. Your argument is invalid.

No matter what new claims you stake, it won't change the fact that the core of your argument is invalid. You don't keep adding onto a compromised foundation; you rebuild.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Ah, we went from right to self defence to right to retaliate? What's next?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I thought never again includes Palestinians. Guess I was wrong.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

Israel is the aggressor

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

Regrettable casualties are sometimes an unfortunate consequence of maintaining order and security in the galaxy. The Empire remains resolute in our mission.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Am I the only one seeing this? Is it... normal for 3 comments in a row to have exactly balanced numbers of up and down votes?

That's a very strange coincidence.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Votes are public and there's no fuzzing like on Reddit, so shenanigans are pretty unlikely.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I run my own instance so I'm always a little paranoid that I fucked it up somehow. Or like, maybe theres a known bug that I don't know about, or a compatibility issue between versions/platforms.

But as another commenter mentioned, at worse it's some loser botting but more likely it really was just a coincidence.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Shenanigans are actually super easy if you care.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Can you elaborate?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You can log into like 5 accounts and basically put anything you want to the top of any comment chain given how low the total vote numbers on lemmy tend to be. An actual astroturfing group could curate the entire front page for pennies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Sure, but again, it's all public record, so the patterns become pretty easy to spot when you see brand new accounts vote-brigading, or always the same 5 alts that are doing it.

For example: https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/134579/Call-out-post-for-a-particular-karma-farmer-on-kbin-social

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It's public record but it doesn't take much effort to obfuscate it's happening. That's why reddit fuzzed votes in the first place.

Chatgpt makes it really easy for the people inclined to write scripts to post comments and repost articles and spin up dozens or hundreds of accounts.

Captchas help but someone committed can throw $100 in and get many many accounts if they don't want to do it themselves. IPv6 addresses to proxy the bots through are easy to get by the thousand too.

You also don't use brand new accounts you roll them over the course of a few weeks or months.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

And if you don't want to actually DO any of that work you can just hire a service that already has the accounts to do it for you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You can log into like 5 accounts and basically put anything you want to the top of and comment chain given how low the total vote numbers on lemmy tend to be. An actual astroturfing group could curate the entire front page for pennies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

The other commenter got to it already.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Probably vote brigading by toxic hexbear users' alts or some other tankies.

It's also a pretty divided topic, especially with the fact that the nature of the conflict leads some people to abandon logic for emotional reasoning. Emotional reasoning makes people feel more sure of themselves and justified in their beliefs and actions.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Are the hexbears hiding under your bed or something?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Nope. They're too busy circle-jerking each other while they vote brigade and spread propoganda.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What are you using to view Lemmy? I use Sync and can't see up and down votes, only the sum.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I'm pretty sure it's the official web UI but I use Memmy on my phone which also shows up and down votes separately

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It's tokenboomer, expect highjinks

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Is it just me or is this community heavily biased? I wonder if this pro-Hamas stance is really present on Lemmy or if there's some bot activity going on.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

If you look outside the US or European MSM, you'll find the world is repulsed by Israel's mass murder of civilians.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Being against blowing up innocent people in their homes is about as far from "pro hamas" as you can be.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

It's more like people especially from the Germanic and English world get surprised that not everyone is rooting for Palestine to get wiped off the map.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

Maybe it would be better if they were getting paid. I'm pretty sure the sad truth is they are spreading all this propaganda because they genuinely believe it.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Lemmy is mostly lefties despite a few glaring counter examples.

Theres a lot of huffing gas going on on the left with near zero historical context or on-the-ground understanding. People still repeat "River t0 the Sea" as if it's not a literal call to genocide for militant nationalists. Instead they post the decolonization blog. Meanwhile even Palestinian Authority reps and members of the negotiating team for the last n peace deals are publishing opinion pieces that the phrase is intrinsically a call to violent genocide and the Palestinian supporters really need to check who they are getting their "facts" from. It's basically on siding with a terrorist org but because some people think there is a noble goal beneath it that makes it OK to chant.

There's also a lot of people too young to remember how the West and East conducts sieges in dense urban areas. It's not good or pretty to look at.

Also like most people outside of the region don't seem to get that Palestinians and Israelis are both more or less the same ethnicity (Semitic though the term has fallen out of usage outside of describing the language roots of Arab and Hebrew and like half a dozen other languages) and look the same. There isn't a skin color component. That's projection from Americans/Westerners who mostly see Ashkenazi jews who tend to avoid light for various reasons and are pretty pale. Once they are back in the middle east everyone turns a shade of olive/brown and you couldn't pick a jew or an Arab out of a lineup if they didn't have religious clothing on to make it easier.