Hamas Attacks Israel: 70 Israelis, 198 Palestinians Dead

[Dill]

(10-09-2023, 10:35 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: He'd get a lot more traction if he didn't have a long track record of blaming Israel unfairly for events such as the Six Days War.  As argued in the other thread, there is a lot to criticize Israel for, but when it is accompanied by attempts to shift the lions share of the blame for these conflicts on to them it becomes tainted.  Israel did not create itself, and since its creation it has been the target of hostile neighbors, essentially all of its neighbors.  Said neighbors have tried to utterly destroy the nation several times in the past, they were the clear aggressors.

Israel reacted to these constant, and severe threats, they didn't create them.  Their actions have not always been ideal, but if we're going to try and turn a lens of understanding on why Hamas does what it does then Israel at the very least deserves the same consideration.  At the same time, no one should be attempting to equate the actions of a terrorist organization funded by a nation that routinely proclaims its desire is "Death to Israel", to the IDF.  To do so puts them on equal terms as actors, which they most certainly are not.  Hamas deliberately targets civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian and is quite comfortable with the wholesale slaughter of innocents.  We don't even need to get into the other unspeakable acts they've committed in the past few days.  Dill is so cognizant of this difference that he flat out refuses to respond to posts asking him to explain what El Quds day protests are about, you'll notice he did so again in this very thread.

So while he raises some legitimate points he does so in a manner that marginalizes the atrocities of Hamas, and their motivations.  They are not just looking for a Palestinian homeland, they want to destroy Israel, in the exact same way as the nation who bankrolls them, the Islamic "Republic" of Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the entire world.  If you want to have an honest conversation of the roots of this present conflict, as Dill claims to want, then its proponent cannot be a poster with a long history of anti-Israeli posts who ignores the real motivations of the Islamic extremists who are, once again, the aggressors in a war with Israel.  I'm sure he'll find a way to blame the Yom Kippur war on Israel too.

My discussions on Israel have always been predicated on the current state of historical research.

Yours have not.

You just claimed that Israel only reacts to constant severe threats, but does not create them. But that claim cannot be supported by the historical record that we currently have. One only gets there by imposing an ideological principle on the representation of history, in which the outcome of is always determined in advance and reached by exclusion. My "long track record" of exposing/correcting such exclusions is what you call "blaming Israel unfairly." You don't separate analysis from moral judgment. Hence any information contradicting your principle is "excusing."

E.g., if I repeat that, at this moment, that most professional historians of the Arab-Israeli conflict--including Likud members like Michael Oren--represent the Six-Day War as arising from multiple causes and misreading on both sides, you count that as an "anti-Israeli post" because it does not follow the above-stated principle. If I advance excluded information, you call it "omission" if I don't immediately exonerate Israel with an Al Quds day whattabout. In essence, the only option you leave for "discussion" is to agree with you in advance that the conflict is never complicated and Israel is never the aggressor, regardless of the facts.

The state of Israel created itself in a war which seized the land and took the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, creating hundreds of thousands of refugees. 75 years later, many of those still alive and their descendants are penned in Gaza and the West Bank under a brutal occupation, and in numerous refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. That is why Israel is the "target of hostile neighbors."

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and many Israelis themselves agree that Israel does target civilians, including children; that includes multiple incidents of using children as human shields. And they have done so since long before Hamas was formed. They violate International Humanitarian Law with collective punishment, arbitrary arrest and confiscation (theft) of personal property, against which Palestinians have no recourse. Wikipedia even has a list of Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians (though it excludes Sabra and Shatila, which happened under Israeli control). You make exclusion of all this info a condition of any "honest" discussion.

From the perspective of most countries in the world, this occupation is a massive injustice, and the root cause of violence in the region. That injustice in turn is the source of what you call "vitriol" against Israel, like Al Quds day. The American press has done a poor job of reporting about this situation, often restricted to or simply accepting Israeli/IDF versions of what is happening on the ground when Israel attacks civilians or accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields. As Bels noted, Americans hear about ME violence in disconnected cycles. When there is breathing space in which the US could use its power to, e.g., establish a two-state solution, interest lags. If a US president ratchets up the heat by endorsing the annexation of Golan, that never "excuses" a violent response.

I missed your "Al Quds" call out on this thread; which post was it? It's a mystery to me why you think that so important. My posts seem to be about actual violations of humanitarian law on the ground, yours about the "vitriol."