That’s the thing, though-- military service is compulsory in Israel at the age of 18. There are certainly conscientious objectors who don’t serve, and the compulsory draft excludes some but not all women; but the line between civilian and soldier in Israel is blurry, not clear-cut like it is in countries without mandatory military service.
On the other hand, there is no compulsory military service in Palestine because the Oslo II accord does not allow Palestinians to have a standing army, air force, or navy.
I agree, but despite this, we know that many civilians were taken and killed, including kids and elderly who cannot possibly be serving in any military.
The line is blurry for elderly people, too. Sam Colt made all people equal when it comes to capacity for personal violence.
I agree with you that killing young children is reprehensible, and I hope that consequences occur for each of the individuals responsible for the deaths of 36 Israeli children. I hold the same hopes for each of the individuals responsible for the deaths of over 10,000 Palestinian children.
I hope you’ll forgive me for giving most of my mental energy to the slaughter that is actively ongoing and much greater in scope.
So you do understand that Hamas commited war crimes and that Israel did as well and that we should evenly condemn those that are killing innocent children and babies and not try to sweep that under the rug by using evasive language correct?
Do not be one of those people who give any semblance of cover to Israel or Hamas.
All you are doing is giving ammo to the people who love to point out such things to influence neutral people.
Do not hurt the cause.
Fuck Hamas and their kidnapping and killing innocents.
Think about this, they could have freely returned any children the next day, or even at the first prisoner exchange for free to show everyone that they do not want to harm innocents in any way.
How much of a moral standing and victory would that have given them?
We could have pointed at every innocent child killed and say “Look Hamas is sparing the children while Israel continues to kill them. See what they are saying is true.”
But they didn’t!
The fucking cowards are continuing to hold children hostage.
They aren’t any better, they just don’t have the ability to do it at scale like Israel.
Fuck them both for every innocent child that is dead or will forever be traumatized by this.
I don’t know what you think “the cause” is, or what cover you think I’m giving to Israel or Hamas. Israel understands that might makes right and that no one will try to stop them because the US backs them. Hamas understands that you cannot “moral standing” your way out from under the thumb of an oppressor because if the oppressor believed in “moral standing” then they would not be an oppressor in the first place.
Morality is great, but material conditions do not care about your or my ideology.
Israel understands that might makes right and that no one will try to stop them because the US backs them. Hamas understands that you cannot “moral standing” your way out from under the thumb of an oppressor because if the oppressor believed in “moral standing” then they would not be an oppressor in the first place.
Can I quote you? This is a good explanation of the situation imo.
Hamas’s actions are pretty unambiguously war crimes
Yes, and they’re also clearly terrorism.
But then, Israel have been reportedly and apparently focusing on “power targets”, which are defined as those with little to no military value, where the goal is to destabilise the civilian population such that they put pressure on Hamas to enact change. “Using violence against civilians in pursuit of a political goal” is the dictionary definition of terrorism.
Both acts are horrific, and above the threshold of anything that could be considered acceptable. It frankly isn’t even worth comparing the two to try and figure out which one is worse - to do so would only tarnish your soul. They’re different, but they’re both unequivocally wrong.
Despite it being “lovely”, it’s still on stolen Palestinian land, hence illegal.
Edit:
I read further (from the same link)
Be’eri was well known for its pro-peace sympathies: It had a special fund to give financial help to Gazans who came to the kibbutz on work permits, and kibbutzniks would often volunteer to drive sick Palestinians to an oncology center in southern Israel
That’s great though, I respect that. That changes my view on that kibbutz. I don’t agree with Hamas’ blanket statements and generalization, and have been critical of them since I was first aware of their existence and lost many friends over it.
Still, I understand why Gazans are angry at them – Palestinians shouldn’t have to live on handouts of good Israelis… it’s the same way I understand why there are attacks on white farms in South Africa. What they did is wrong, this is an explanation as to why, not whether or not it was wrong. It helps to form an understanding of why 75 years of apartheid and radicalization can drive people over the edge.
In the end, when this all started, some Hamas at least freed numerous hostages for humanitarian reasons. They are not all bad. Some of them are genuinely just resistance fighters and don’t want to do bad things and even have conflicts with other members who do. The same goes for the IDF (recommending basically every video produced by Breaking the Silence).
Still, I understand why Gazans are angry at them – Palestinians shouldn’t have to live on handouts of good Israelis… it’s the same way I understand why there are attacks on white farms in South Africa. What they did is wrong, this is an explanation as to why, not whether or not it was wrong. It helps to form an understanding of why 75 years of apartheid and radicalization can drive people over the edge.
That doesn’t change that Hamas’s goals and methods are genocidal in all but success rate. “Well, they were oppressed for so long” might be a ‘why’, but it’s hardly a ‘why’ worth mentioning; no more than the history of oppression of the Jews is worth mentioning when discussing the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Ultimately, there is only one answer worth giving - that genocide is unacceptable, and whichever side is currently attempting it (Israel, in this case) must be punished, and the side that was recently attempting it (Hamas) must not be justified or lionized.
In the end, when this all started, some Hamas at least freed numerous hostages for humanitarian reasons. They are not all bad. Some of them are genuinely just resistance fighters and don’t want to do bad things and even have conflicts with other members who do. The same goes for the IDF (recommending basically every video produced by Breaking the Silence).
Propaganda moves and negotiations for hostage swaps aren’t signs of being ‘not all bad’ and not wanting to ‘do bad things’. Fuck man, every terrorist group of note in history makes those propaganda moves - terrorist states like Israel included.
Neither Hamas’ goals nor their methods are “genocidal”. They don’t call for the eradication of Jewish people. You can argue that if these massacres like October 7th continue, you can have a case for genocide. But now? Nah.
The final death toll from the attack is now thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139.
Even including police, that’s a 32% civilian casualty ratio. Israel’s current civilian casualty ratio is between 20%-38%.
I ask again, what is the lowest civilian casualty ratio that suggests genocide to you? How many of the attacked locations have to be civilian targets in which only civilians were killed before you’ll admit that maybe Israel’s response of wholesale slaughter of civilians based on ethnicity does not retroactively justify Hamas’s attempts at the wholesale slaughter of civilians based on ethnicity?
Israel is killing 70% women and children. How the hell are you even going to 38%? Even 20% is an absurd claim. It’s likely around 95-98%.
The numbers are intended the other way around. The 32% I cited for Hamas suggests 68% of the deaths are civilians; the 20-38% I suggested for Israel suggests 80%-62% of Israel’s genocidal campaign are civilian deaths. I can see how you’d get the other interpretation.
I already explained the rest multiple times I don’t have time for repeated IDF trolling.
Explained is a cute word for ‘dismissed because targeting civilians hurts the hero-worship for Hamas you’re cultivating’
By now AMAN, the IDF intelligence service, must have all the evidence against Iran’s involvement in the genocide on October 7 that was found right after the massacre and during the ground operation in Gaza.
This evidence makes Iran complicit in the genocide carried out on October 7, 2023 against Israeli Jews in the villages around Gaza.
The case that Israel will bring against Iran at the ICJ therefore appears to be a lot stronger than that of South Africa against the Jewish state.
LOL the meme is just abou the twisted logic of The Times of Israel. No one is downplaying any crimes. Same “experts” Israel has will always make Israel look good and make Hamas look like ISIS (which we all know is an unfair comparison). Hamas commited war crimes, but are they genocide? The Times of Israel and Israeli propaganda want to toy around with the word. "Oh! You think we are doing genocide? Na’aa! YOU are doing genocide, ALL OF YOU!!"
make Hamas look like ISIS (which we all know is an unfair comparison)
No, we really don’t all see that as an unfair comparison actually.
You cited Amnesty as a source you consider credible, so we can see how they reported Hamas were torturing and executing their own people much like ISIS/ISIL often have the brunt of their violence on dissidents among their own local populations.
Israel’s actions aside, Hamas on their own is a disgusting collection of bottom feeding psychopaths that have no place in any modern society. It’s weird as shit that it’s somehow become socially unacceptable to recognize Hamas as the pieces of shit they are as if we can’t simultaneously condemn their actions and ideology while also condemning the same of Likud.
The comparison between ISIS and Hamas (a claim no intelligent or respectable historical, anthropologist or political scientist will likely ever make in the way described here) is an idiological comparison, not an intellectual one.
We already established Hamas is bad, no one disagrees. But a step further is needed to excuse the unspeakable and unrelenting massacring of Gazans and the destruction of their homes. It’s to say, “LOOK! WE ARE FIGHTING (K)HAMAS-ISIS! THEY ARE LIKE ISIS!!! REMEMBER ISIS???”
A professor of Islamic studies at UMass Dartmouth literally wrote an article on how Hamas has recently adopted ISIS tactics and intermingled with them growing much closer, and primarily only highlighted the religious and ideological goals as the differences.
Some excerpts:
My long study of Islamic State fighting tactics, including field research in Iraq, leads me to believe Hamas has recently undergone a radical ISIS-inspired transformation that has not yet gotten widespread public attention. Prior to its Oct. 7 blitz, Hamas’ actions were limited to lobbing imprecise rockets and digging tunnels into Israel to kidnap or kill small numbers of Israelis.
But as University of Miami professor and expert in the study of jihadism Nathan S. French has noted in El Pais, “Hamas operatives – like other Islamist and jihadist groups – borrow, steal and appropriate tactics and strategies from other similar political, guerrilla, or militant movements.” And it seems that Hamas has borrowed tactics from ISIS.
It’s likely that Hamas learned from the hundreds of Palestinians who joined both the core ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq and the ISIS affiliate in the Sinai.
And despite their differences, Hamas officials have in the past met directly with leaders of the Islamic State in the Sinai. Those meetings were likely linked to collaboration between the two groups for specific actions that benefited their respective goals, such as weapons smuggling, undermining Egyptian government influence in the Sinai and transporting injured Islamic State fighters to Gaza for medical treatment.
In October 2023, an article in the U.K. newspaper The Times cited an intelligence official who said, “It’s clear that the two movements have worked together close enough over the past few years to copy each other’s methods, learn tactics and train on weapons they have procured together.”
This part is especially hilarious given your protestations:
On Oct. 7, Hamas fighters reportedly left black ISIS war banners at the scene of several attacks. There were also videos posted online that appeared to show Hamas fighters singing popular ISIS war songs as they stormed into Israel.
“Another random kid” being shot to death with her family by the IDF who seem to have also probably killed the two volunteers trying to get her in an ambulance can never be justified. Not sure why you mention kids on the other side, unless you want to somehow make up an excuse for this war crime.
Do they call for the destruction of the Israeli people now living in Israel? No.
Do they call for pulling recognition from an illegitimate apartheid and colonial state founded on robbing Palestinians of their lands, lives, and future? Sure. And I agree.
As bad as Hamas are (and yes, they committed war crimes, plain and simple), they still are resisting an oppressor who butchers them at every corner and at every chance (which is legal under international law). I don’t think it’s possible to make a convincing argument on genocide by Hamas.
Don’t defend terrorists of either side
Don’t equate either sides, and don’t suggest that this is Israel vs Hamas when it’s clearly Israel vs every Palestinian dead or alive, in the West Bank or in Gaza, online or offline.
Nope and nobody is saying that. It’s the military nature of the targets, evacuation orders, and additional warnings that take most of these bombings out of the ambit of war crimes.
It’s okay to destroy all that civilians need to live thanks to this “disclaimer”. Yeah, totally makes sense. Totally not an attempt at ethnic cleansing. 👍
PS: what the IDF is doing is against international humanitarian law. But that’s fine… since they say they don’t break it, and you can’t possibly have been “tricked” by them.
Because… I took issue with a meme that can be read as suggesting that accusations of war crimes towards Hamas are peddled by fake experts spreading Israeli propaganda?
I mean, Hamas’s actions are pretty unambiguously war crimes.
They were definitely terrorist actions, not sure about war crimes. But what the IDF are doing is definitely war crimes.
Attacking civilian targets and taking civilian hostages are both very unambiguously war crimes.
Not if you say the civilian targets are hamas’ hideouts and the hostages are detainees.
taps head
That’s the thing, though-- military service is compulsory in Israel at the age of 18. There are certainly conscientious objectors who don’t serve, and the compulsory draft excludes some but not all women; but the line between civilian and soldier in Israel is blurry, not clear-cut like it is in countries without mandatory military service.
On the other hand, there is no compulsory military service in Palestine because the Oslo II accord does not allow Palestinians to have a standing army, air force, or navy.
I agree, but despite this, we know that many civilians were taken and killed, including kids and elderly who cannot possibly be serving in any military.
The line is blurry for elderly people, too. Sam Colt made all people equal when it comes to capacity for personal violence.
I agree with you that killing young children is reprehensible, and I hope that consequences occur for each of the individuals responsible for the deaths of 36 Israeli children. I hold the same hopes for each of the individuals responsible for the deaths of over 10,000 Palestinian children.
I hope you’ll forgive me for giving most of my mental energy to the slaughter that is actively ongoing and much greater in scope.
So you do understand that Hamas commited war crimes and that Israel did as well and that we should evenly condemn those that are killing innocent children and babies and not try to sweep that under the rug by using evasive language correct?
Do not be one of those people who give any semblance of cover to Israel or Hamas.
All you are doing is giving ammo to the people who love to point out such things to influence neutral people.
Do not hurt the cause.
Fuck Hamas and their kidnapping and killing innocents.
Think about this, they could have freely returned any children the next day, or even at the first prisoner exchange for free to show everyone that they do not want to harm innocents in any way.
How much of a moral standing and victory would that have given them?
We could have pointed at every innocent child killed and say “Look Hamas is sparing the children while Israel continues to kill them. See what they are saying is true.”
But they didn’t!
The fucking cowards are continuing to hold children hostage.
They aren’t any better, they just don’t have the ability to do it at scale like Israel.
Fuck them both for every innocent child that is dead or will forever be traumatized by this.
I don’t know what you think “the cause” is, or what cover you think I’m giving to Israel or Hamas. Israel understands that might makes right and that no one will try to stop them because the US backs them. Hamas understands that you cannot “moral standing” your way out from under the thumb of an oppressor because if the oppressor believed in “moral standing” then they would not be an oppressor in the first place.
Morality is great, but material conditions do not care about your or my ideology.
Can I quote you? This is a good explanation of the situation imo.
They don’t need to beat Israel, they just need to defeat the support Israel has from allies
Since you have a blurry excuse for everything : what about killed foreigners, whom aren’t Israeli neither jew ?
I don’t think you’re asking this question in good faith, so I’m not going to engage in a conversation with you. Have a good morning!
Still war crimes, they kidnapped babies and children
Yes, and they’re also clearly terrorism.
But then, Israel have been reportedly and apparently focusing on “power targets”, which are defined as those with little to no military value, where the goal is to destabilise the civilian population such that they put pressure on Hamas to enact change. “Using violence against civilians in pursuit of a political goal” is the dictionary definition of terrorism.
Both acts are horrific, and above the threshold of anything that could be considered acceptable. It frankly isn’t even worth comparing the two to try and figure out which one is worse - to do so would only tarnish your soul. They’re different, but they’re both unequivocally wrong.
This is a very good post and true.
Wow, we two finally agree on something.
See that!
They are war crimes but they are very clearly not genocide.
Only for lack of success.
I mean, their founding constitution literally says death to Israel. Lack of success is literally the only reason why.
Doesn’t justify Israel war crime, but people should atleast understand what both sides goals are.
No, no, they totally and radically changed in 2017, please ignore any history, context, statements, or actions past that point.
Good point. A renewed charter can be a sign of change but also a sign of trying to normalize one’s organization.
No it was pretty clear that they were not trying eradicate everyone. You don’t get 33% military kills when you’re going for genocide.
They shouldn’t have killed any civilians, but I understand why they’d attack an illegal settlement right outside their open air prison.
Yes, very illegal, this settlement
Despite it being “lovely”, it’s still on stolen Palestinian land, hence illegal.
Edit:
I read further (from the same link)
That’s great though, I respect that. That changes my view on that kibbutz. I don’t agree with Hamas’ blanket statements and generalization, and have been critical of them since I was first aware of their existence and lost many friends over it.
Still, I understand why Gazans are angry at them – Palestinians shouldn’t have to live on handouts of good Israelis… it’s the same way I understand why there are attacks on white farms in South Africa. What they did is wrong, this is an explanation as to why, not whether or not it was wrong. It helps to form an understanding of why 75 years of apartheid and radicalization can drive people over the edge.
In the end, when this all started, some Hamas at least freed numerous hostages for humanitarian reasons. They are not all bad. Some of them are genuinely just resistance fighters and don’t want to do bad things and even have conflicts with other members who do. The same goes for the IDF (recommending basically every video produced by Breaking the Silence).
It’s been Israeli since 1948. It’s not an illegal settlement under international law.
In 1946 actually.
PS: please see my edit on the comment on your link! thanks.
Its almost like they went to war with their allies and lost territory when they lost or something.
That doesn’t change that Hamas’s goals and methods are genocidal in all but success rate. “Well, they were oppressed for so long” might be a ‘why’, but it’s hardly a ‘why’ worth mentioning; no more than the history of oppression of the Jews is worth mentioning when discussing the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Ultimately, there is only one answer worth giving - that genocide is unacceptable, and whichever side is currently attempting it (Israel, in this case) must be punished, and the side that was recently attempting it (Hamas) must not be justified or lionized.
Propaganda moves and negotiations for hostage swaps aren’t signs of being ‘not all bad’ and not wanting to ‘do bad things’. Fuck man, every terrorist group of note in history makes those propaganda moves - terrorist states like Israel included.
Neither Hamas’ goals nor their methods are “genocidal”. They don’t call for the eradication of Jewish people. You can argue that if these massacres like October 7th continue, you can have a case for genocide. But now? Nah.
Military veteran recounts Israeli helicopter firing missiles in kibbutz Be’eri
Tank fires on Israeli civilian home in Kibbutz Be’eri, 7 October 2023
Hamas had hostages inside so the IDF decided to unalive everyone inside with the Hanibal doctrine :)
Ah, so all those people slaughtered at a music festival were dangerous, I see.
Funny because the civilian casualty ratio for Hamas is higher than that. What is the lowest civilian casualty ratio that suggests genocide to you?
Are you still on the 1400 deaths train? That was debunked long ago dude
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths
And the IDF shot tanks at the kibbutzes,
And the IDF helicopters shot hellfire missles at the kibbutzes.
The real civilian casualty count from just Hamas likeylies at 1/2 or lower.
Even including police, that’s a 32% civilian casualty ratio. Israel’s current civilian casualty ratio is between 20%-38%.
I ask again, what is the lowest civilian casualty ratio that suggests genocide to you? How many of the attacked locations have to be civilian targets in which only civilians were killed before you’ll admit that maybe Israel’s response of wholesale slaughter of civilians based on ethnicity does not retroactively justify Hamas’s attempts at the wholesale slaughter of civilians based on ethnicity?
Israel is killing 70% women and children. How the hell are you even going to 38%? Even 20% is an absurd claim. It’s likely around 95-98%.
I already explained the rest multiple times I don’t have time for repeated IDF trolling.
The numbers are intended the other way around. The 32% I cited for Hamas suggests 68% of the deaths are civilians; the 20-38% I suggested for Israel suggests 80%-62% of Israel’s genocidal campaign are civilian deaths. I can see how you’d get the other interpretation.
Explained is a cute word for ‘dismissed because targeting civilians hurts the hero-worship for Hamas you’re cultivating’
Also their voiced intention is to kill all jews everywhere – which is a genocide.
Too bad they’re too busy going after Iran instead
https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/analysis-israel-and-the-genocide-case-against-iran-at-the-icj/
Let’s hear some more from the “experts”:
So the fact that Hamas did war crimes is a license for Israel to do the same against 10x times more civilians in Gaza, is that what you are saying?
Fuck no. But it also shouldn’t be dismissed like in the meme.
LOL the meme is just abou the twisted logic of The Times of Israel. No one is downplaying any crimes. Same “experts” Israel has will always make Israel look good and make Hamas look like ISIS (which we all know is an unfair comparison). Hamas commited war crimes, but are they genocide? The Times of Israel and Israeli propaganda want to toy around with the word. "Oh! You think we are doing genocide? Na’aa! YOU are doing genocide, ALL OF YOU!!"
No, we really don’t all see that as an unfair comparison actually.
You cited Amnesty as a source you consider credible, so we can see how they reported Hamas were torturing and executing their own people much like ISIS/ISIL often have the brunt of their violence on dissidents among their own local populations.
Israel’s actions aside, Hamas on their own is a disgusting collection of bottom feeding psychopaths that have no place in any modern society. It’s weird as shit that it’s somehow become socially unacceptable to recognize Hamas as the pieces of shit they are as if we can’t simultaneously condemn their actions and ideology while also condemning the same of Likud.
Did Amnesty make that comparison or did you add it?
It’s patent from the facts.
The comparison between ISIS and Hamas (a claim no intelligent or respectable historical, anthropologist or political scientist will likely ever make in the way described here) is an idiological comparison, not an intellectual one.
We already established Hamas is bad, no one disagrees. But a step further is needed to excuse the unspeakable and unrelenting massacring of Gazans and the destruction of their homes. It’s to say, “LOOK! WE ARE FIGHTING (K)HAMAS-ISIS! THEY ARE LIKE ISIS!!! REMEMBER ISIS???”
Edit: typo
A professor of Islamic studies at UMass Dartmouth literally wrote an article on how Hamas has recently adopted ISIS tactics and intermingled with them growing much closer, and primarily only highlighted the religious and ideological goals as the differences.
Some excerpts:
This part is especially hilarious given your protestations:
LoLed at this one
Well I’m glad I put a smile on your face, “EvilZionistEatingChildren”.
And while Zionists don’t eat them, they sure do shoot them to death in cold blood and then deny they were ever there.
Ah yes another random kid died.
Just like some other kids that died on Israeli side.
“Another random kid” being shot to death with her family by the IDF who seem to have also probably killed the two volunteers trying to get her in an ambulance can never be justified. Not sure why you mention kids on the other side, unless you want to somehow make up an excuse for this war crime.
Given that their stated goal is the destruction of Israel, yes.
Both sides are trying to genocide the other, Israel is just doing it at scale.
Don’t defend terrorists of either side
Is that their current stance? I don’t want to be the one pulling out the Hamas charter but here we go: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
As bad as Hamas are (and yes, they committed war crimes, plain and simple), they still are resisting an oppressor who butchers them at every corner and at every chance (which is legal under international law). I don’t think it’s possible to make a convincing argument on genocide by Hamas.
Don’t equate either sides, and don’t suggest that this is Israel vs Hamas when it’s clearly Israel vs every Palestinian dead or alive, in the West Bank or in Gaza, online or offline.
again, not defending any terrorists, but thanks I guess since that isn’t bad advice 🤷♂️
Nope and nobody is saying that. It’s the military nature of the targets, evacuation orders, and additional warnings that take most of these bombings out of the ambit of war crimes.
“Evacuation orders, and additional warnings” from the IDF:
Really funny when Israel thinks a “disclaimer” makes it acceptable to bomb and kill civilians right and left.
Not Israel, intentional law.
I’m amazed, @JustZ@lemmy.world. Just amazed at you.
It’s okay to destroy all that civilians need to live thanks to this “disclaimer”. Yeah, totally makes sense. Totally not an attempt at ethnic cleansing. 👍
PS: what the IDF is doing is against international humanitarian law. But that’s fine… since they say they don’t break it, and you can’t possibly have been “tricked” by them.
Your actions are clearly whataboutism.
Because… I took issue with a meme that can be read as suggesting that accusations of war crimes towards Hamas are peddled by fake experts spreading Israeli propaganda?