Thoughts on current events.

[aadler]

Some years ago, in a Skype conversation, my daughter caught me off guard by expressing concern for the plight of the Palestinians. Because I hadn’t expected such sentiments, I didn’t have time to consider my response to her … but it came without thought, because it goes to the core of my beliefs:

“Fuck the Palestinians. Fuck the Palestinians. FUCK the Palestinians.”

A perceptive analyst might realistically infer from the statement that I do not have any particular sympathy for the Palestinians. I wonder how my daughter feels today.

***

If Israel could kill all the Palestinians, simply wipe them off the face of the planet … well, they could. And they haven’t.

Why not? What’s stopping them? World opinion? The world already hates Israel, this would just be more of the same. Arab nations might hold it against them, jeopardizing such tenuous, chilly détentes as are currently in place? Could happen, I suppose … but other Arabs hold the Palestinians in contempt, possibly — though not certainly — as much as I do. (Possibly more, since they have the opportunity to know them better.)

We know what the Palestinians would do if they had the power, because they tell us — they tell EVERYBODY — and any small bit of power they accumulate, they immediately use for murder and atrocity, as we are seeing.

No, the reason the Israelis don’t kill all the Palestinians, every last fucking one of them, is because the Israelis aren’t filthy barbarians.

And the subhuman scum attacking Israel … are.

Comments

[gillo]

I don't think there can be any winners in this, only losers. Palestinians are not the same as Hamas. Just as Israelis don't all support Netenyahu, who is a thug. Dismissing any ethnic group as "subhuman scum" is wrong. The actual killers, that's different. They don't care who gets killed as by-products of their war. Including the majority of people trapped in Gaza now suffering carpet bombing.

Might I recommend you have a look at this article, by a respected British journalist who happens to be Jewish? https://davidaaronovitch.substack.com/p/awake-in-the-night?r=2817om&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

[aadler]

“The subhuman scum attacking Israel” specifically cites those presently — directly — participating in terror, murder, kidnapping, torture, and atrocities that no decent human could excuse. Taking that citation, and suggesting that it is meant to include the entire population, is either poor thinking or deliberate dishonesty.

I don’t see any way Israel can ever have peace as long as the Palestinians are determined to kill as many Jews as they can find a way to do. And the Palestinians will never stop wanting that as long as Jew-hate remains part of their culture … which it is, built into their culture by deliberate education, propaganda, and endless exhortation.

None of which addresses my original point: that Israel continues to exist because the Palestinians don’t have the power to eradicate it … and the Palestinians continue to exist because Israel does have the power to eradicate them, and doesn’t do so.

[gillo]

You are doing exactly what you criticise. The term "Palestinian" defines all those people, the majority of them displaced, whose ancestors lived in Palestine. That includes the entire population of Gaza and the indigenous people of the West Bank. Are you seriously claiming they are all "determined to kill as many Jews as they can find a way to do.", because that is demonstrably not so.

As for their culture, they live extremely tough lives compounded by official harshness. Currently the population of Gaza are being deprived of access to food, water and power. Including children, old people, invalids. They are certainly victims of Hamas propaganda, but that doesn't make them all terrorists.

[aadler]

I. Don’t. Care.

If the subject is tough lives, my concern is going to be for the people whose lives are being ended by the depredations of murderous barbarians. And I don’t have to determine the moral status of every individual Palestinian to recognize that the Palestinian culture as a whole is animated by — and exists solely for — hate. These people celebrate atrocities that would make a civilized person vomit. Any defense of them is obscene.

[gillo]

You don't care. Only Israelis matter? The babies and children in the hospital and schools Netenyahu bombed don't matter? They don't have the correct ethnicity or religion to matter, perhaps? Or they have relatives who committed crimes, so it's OK for them to suffer?

There are no Good Sides in this. A vicious mess made worse by leaders on both sides. As for celebrating atrocities, perhaps you should look up Sabra and Chatila, or the King David Hotel.

Murder is murder. It is wrong. And children are being murdered by both sides.

[aadler]

These moral equivalency games annoy the living shit out of me.

Side A recognizes, regretfully, that the achievement of their military objectives will include civilian casualties, despite reasonable efforts to avoid such casualties, and proceeds anyway. Side B has the murder of civilians AS one of their main military objectives. Therefore, because both sides produce civilian casualties, Side B is ‘no worse’ than side A.

Bullshit. BULLSHIT.

Hamas sites military stockpiles and command infrastructure in/near hospitals and civilian housing. Israel bombs legitimate targets, and the hospitals and housing get hit in the process. “This means Israel is deliberately targeting civilians!”

BULLSHIT.

You are pointing to the innocent victims on the one side, and using that to defend (or at least deflect attention from) the vermin advocating — and fervently attempting — genocide against the other side. You toss out a little comment-in-passing of ‘Oh, yes, Hamas is bad’ and then proceed to expound on how terrible Israel is for its response to massive, systematic murder.

If you really want to help the Palestinians, start a worldwide drive to get rid of the butchers leading them. And be prepared to keep at it for a long time, because they’ll spend a long time coming up with more butchers.

[gillo]

No defence is possible for what Hamas did. Carpet-bombing civilians is also criminal. Two wrongs, as they say.

Why should I start a campaign? all I want is for people to stop being murdered, by guns, boms, knives - and carpet bombing. I am no more responsible for the terrorists than you are. Did I ask you to campaign to have Netenyahu put in jail, where he belongs.

Ending this now. Go on delighting in the "mercy" that destroys the one source of power to the entire Gaza strip and bombs refugees if you must. No more argiung from me.

[aadler]

More bogus ‘equivalency’.

Hamas sets out on a specific campaign of deliberate atrocity. Israel strikes back with a conventional campaign that — predictably, and unavoidably — will include civilian casualties among a population that actively supports the genocidal goals of its government.

And, again, you say, “Oh, yes, of course Hamas is bad” … and then go on to say Israel is just as bad.

After I already pointed out that you were doing that.

I’m glad to hear that you’ve had enough of this argument, because I can no longer believe you’re arguing in good faith.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

I've been to Israel and met both Israelis and Palestinians. I join you in condemning Hamas. They are scum that need to be eradicated. At the same time I weep for the Palestinians that just want to live their lives. Hamas uses its own people as human shields. It uses children to cover their own asses. Right now, while Israel bombs the Gaza strip, they're hiding in bunkers so they are safe while innocents die. Current reporting indicates that they are preventing civilians from evacuating, possibly by bombing those feeing.

Is it really so wrong to weep for the innocents caught in the middle because horrible, awful people who cannot stop using up oxygen too soon are using them?

[aadler]

I don’t have any particular sympathy for the Palestinian civilians; they elected Hamas as their government, and by all accounts enthusiastically support Jew-hate and Jew-killing, dancing in the streets at reports of the latest atrocities. All the same, I’m not calling for their obliteration. If they can find a means of staying out of the way of combat operations, good for them. If their leadership keeps them in the path of the expected IDF invasion — not just as shields, but so Hamas can then point to dead civilians in the latest shrieks about Israeli war crimes — then they’re facing the consequences of choosing murderous barbarians for their leadership. Which might, perhaps (but then look again at the mindset they’ve demonstrated so far), prompt them to exercise some more farsighted discretion the next time there are elections.

Bad people make bad decisions. Bad people do bad things. Eventually, bad people come to bad ends. Maybe the ‘innocent’ civilian population can learn something from this.

Judging from their history, though, probably not.