[Aardwolf]

Very well, the "counterattacking didn't reduce the rate or volume of rocket fire" argument is benched (but not disproved).

But I will not "get out". This is not a matter of me "not getting it". This is either a matter of opinion, or a matter of you not getting what I have been saying, on two issues:

1. Retaliation is not always defense.
2. A government's obligation to defend its people is not more important than the right of any innocent civilian, regardless of government, to not be killed.
    All people, regardless of government, have a right to not be killed, and a government's obligation to defend its people is not more important than that.

[Spoon]

Devil's advocate:
Couldn't stuff like Operation Brother's Keeper be construed as an attack, thus justifying Hamas firing rockets into Israel (since it's the only thing they can do against Israeli agression)?

They could just stop firing rockets at Israel. That would... stop all aggression.
Wowow, crazy suggestion. I know.

I think the suggestion that Hamas stopping firing rockets would lead to peace is about as naive as the one that peace would follow Israel stopping retaliation.

Stopping aggression =/= signing a peace treaty.
Here, let me explain it to you in simple words: Hamas stops firing rockets. Israel has nothing to retaliate to.
Wow look, no shots are being fired all of the sudden. No more aggression. Simple basic logic is so naive.

[Scotty]

Very well, the "counterattacking didn't reduce the rate or volume of rocket fire" argument is benched (but not disproved).

But I will not "get out". This is not a matter of me "not getting it". This is either a matter of opinion, or a matter of you not getting what I have been saying, on two issues:

1. Retaliation is not always defense.
2. A government's obligation to defend its people is not more important than the right of any innocent civilian, regardless of government, to not be killed.

You have not yet successfully presented a case for your first point.  As I've been saying for the last five pages (apparently to deaf ears), lives are not the yardstick by which defense is measured.  Intent, geopolitical landscape, and perception play into it as heavily if not more.

As for point number two, a governments obligation to defend its people is by definition more important to that government than the right of any civilian that is not of that government's people to not be killed.  This is especially true when an opposing government has willfully and egregiously violated the standards for the safety of its own people in such a manner.  Hamas has deliberately positioned itself to cause civilian casualties when it is attacked.  This is a repugnant and blatantly obvious ploy to gain international support from people who think just like you do.

Hamas has successfully manipulated you.  Congratulations.

[Lorric]

Aardwolf, you're not actually advocating a complete stop of Israel's retaliation, are you? Would you still approve of actions against Hamas that would involve low or no civillian casualties? That is the impression I have got from you, that it is actions resulting in a too high number of civilian casualties you disapprove of, and that those civilian casualties actually do more damage to Israel than not striking at all, not the concept of being against retaliating against Hamas itself, am I right?

[Aardwolf]

@Scotty:

1. So you agree that retaliation is not always defense. Good.  Forgive me if I am mistaken, but I believe this is the first time you have said that "intent" and "perception" had anything to do with it.

2. I deliberately chose to divorce myself from the specifics of the Israel vs Hamas conflict when phrasing these questions. I am aware of Hamas' repugnant and blatantly obvious ploy to gain international support; it is repugnant and blatantly obvious. It is also not relevant to the actual disagreement between us... unless the problem is that you have been arguing in abstract terms while thinking in Israel vs Hamas terms? Whatever, I'm not going to go back and read every thing you've written to check whether you used abstract or specific terms.

    Is there a reason you have refused to comment on my thought experiment?

    The reason I created that thought experiment was not (solely) to back you into a corner and force you to admit that your beliefs have absurd, detestable ramifications. Rather, it is sometimes useful to ask what the difference is between two obviously very different things, because it helps us articulate what that difference is.

    So, I ask again: why do you think it is unreasonable to substitute ("your friends, family, and loved ones", "teams chosen by a coin toss") in place of ("people", "nations")?



@Lorric: My original objection was to the 194:1 civilian casualty rate, based primarily on the assumption that if Israel had not counterattacked, the total civilian casualties would be drastically lower than 195. So far I'm the only one (afaik) who has speculated about what the civilian casualties would've been like had Israel not counterattacked. My estimate was "0:1", but that was based on my "rate or volume of fire" hypothesis, which I will no longer repeat in a manner that might be interpreted as definite fact.

[Scotty]

@Scotty:

1. So you agree that retaliation is not always defense. Good.  Forgive me if I am mistaken, but I believe this is the first time you have said that "intent" and "perception" had anything to do with it.

2. I deliberately chose to divorce myself from the specifics of the Israel vs Hamas conflict when phrasing these questions.

And you wonder why I'm so frustrated.  You never quite deigned to tell us that you were trying to discuss the issue while ignoring most everything that makes the issue, you know, an issue.

The only thing you're accomplishing now is further obfuscating the serious discussion on the state of affairs between Israel and Gaza with your simplistic "thought experiments" and unwillingness to confront the actual topic.

I will say it for a ninth time.  The circumstances in which Israel finds itself necessitate an armed response to an offensive stimulus.  I have not changed my position or my intent.  You can go back and read my my first weigh-in on that particular issue to check for yourself.  The core of the matter has always been that Israel cannot afford to not respond to these attacks.

EDIT:  In case leaving the intent behind that last sentence implied turns out to be the wrong decision: the entire conversation we've had up to this point has been why Israel cannot afford to not respond, and how retaliation is the only effective response the IDF can muster into a Hamas-dominated Gaza.

[Polpolion]

I think the suggestion that Hamas stopping firing rockets would lead to peace is about as naive as the one that peace would follow Israel stopping retaliation.

Very much agreed. Like I said earlier in the thread, both sides are going to need to make serious diplomatic compromises for peace to be a real possibility. There is much, much, more to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza than Hamas/Fatah/etc provoking Israeli airstrikes, but it's difficult to find solutions before the violence has stopped. The situation is even more grim when you realize Palestinian politics is dominated by hard-line factions whose defining goals consist of getting rid of Israel entirely. Which has been stated several times in this thread and is already clear to most of us, I'm sure.

As far as utilitarianism goes, I think it's a really stupid way to approach geopolitics. It's one thing to make utilitarian decisions on a small scale and when there's no real persisting state to the next problem, but on a global scale you're going to have a hard time showing that a particular decision will lead to a sustainable favorable result with any degree of confidence. And greedily focusing on lives saved in the current incursion into Gaza is itself probably among the laziest utilitarian decisions I can imagine.

[Aardwolf]

@Scotty: None of your explanations for why you think "not retaliating = doom" were convincing enough to make me agree.

If you will recall, one of my earlier counterarguments was that there must exist (by virtue of it being absurd (IMO) for there not to exist) some strategy (with silly acronyms!) where "not retaliating != doom". Except I made the mistake of using the word "scenario", which you latched onto and interpreted as "only one of the infinitely branching possible futures", when the point was that it be a decision strategy for minimizing the civilian death toll, taking the probability-weighted average of all of those infinitely branching futures, with the (implicit) assumption that if in one of those futures the state of Israel collapses, a lot of civilians would die, and those deaths count.

So when you told me you didn't care about the "numbers", that it was the "principle" of self-defense, even though my "numbers" take into account the Bad Stuff that would happen if that principle were not followed... that kind of sounded like an abstract ethics statement.

And yes I realize the "probability-weighted average for all of the possible outcomes [...]" is not knowable. But it seems to me to be very unlikely that no strategy exists that could do better than 195. Wanted to insert a stupid joke about CASSANDRA but it would have been too forced.

[Grizzly]

Devil's advocate:
Couldn't stuff like Operation Brother's Keeper be construed as an attack, thus justifying Hamas firing rockets into Israel (since it's the only thing they can do against Israeli agression)?

They could just stop firing rockets at Israel. That would... stop all aggression.
Wowow, crazy suggestion. I know.

I think the suggestion that Hamas stopping firing rockets would lead to peace is about as naive as the one that peace would follow Israel stopping retaliation.

Stopping aggression =/= signing a peace treaty.
Here, let me explain it to you in simple words: Hamas stops firing rockets. Israel has nothing to retaliate to.
Wow look, no shots are being fired all of the sudden. No more aggression. Simple basic logic is so naive.

Indeed it is, as it assumes that Israel isn't doing anything to provoke Hamas. Or the palestinians in general.

[Luis Dias]

I don't think Hamas needs any provocation to be the scumbags they are. I think this point needs to be driven home more often: Hamas is the ****tiest **** there is. Had Hamas the power in its hands that Israel has, the region would now be experiencing nuclear fallout. This is beyond certainty. So the point like "Oh Israel is just provoking poor Hamas into doing this" should not even be thought, let alone written. For all the sympathy I have with the palestinian people, let's also be clear about this: Hamas was elected by them. Hamas declared war on Israel. And now they are surprised Israel is fighting back?!? Come on. Even the germans in WW2 had a little more dignity on this.

[headdie]

Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel and a number of Western and non-Western governments; The United States, Canada, the European Union, Jordan, Egypt and Japan classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. Other states, however, including Iran, Russia, Turkey, China and many Arab nations do not.
..........
Hamas was founded in 1987 (during the First Intifada) as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.[3][4] Co-founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin stated in 1987, and the Hamas Charter affirmed in 1988, that Hamas was founded to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation and to establish an Islamic state in the area that is now Israel
..........

Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, deputy chairman of Hamas political bureau, said in 2014 that "Hamas will not recognize Israel", adding "this is a red line that cannot be crossed"

also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter is useful for understanding why this is not a simple action/reaction scenario.  the very existence of hamas moves the situation into a self perpetuating conflict by the very nature of the organisation.  Israel can turtle up all it likes but Hamas' own charter means it has to keep up the offensive, either overtly or covertly.  hence my comment about significant political and social change for there to be peace.

[Grizzly]

I don't think Hamas needs any provocation to be the scumbags they are. I think this point needs to be driven home more often: Hamas is the ****tiest **** there is. Had Hamas the power in its hands that Israel has, the region would now be experiencing nuclear fallout. This is beyond certainty. So the point like "Oh Israel is just provoking poor Hamas into doing this" should not even be thought, let alone written. For all the sympathy I have with the palestinian people, let's also be clear about this: Hamas was elected by them. Hamas declared war on Israel. And now they are surprised Israel is fighting back?!? Come on. Even the germans in WW2 had a little more dignity on this.

Yet I do keep wondering: If Israel hasn't kept doing stuff like blocading the region, building houses on the west bank, building a wall trough the palestinian territory, detaining people seemingly at random, shooting protestors and all that stuff... Would Hamas even have been elected? I am not saying that Hamas is not evil, but I do think that some of Israel's objectives, stances and methods are what led to the organization's creation and rise to power in the first place. Endless circle of violence.

Spoon mentoined that Israel's actions are very much like the US's actions in Afghanistan and Iraq in the war on terror, but those actions did destabalize the region as well.

[Spoon]

Yet I do keep wondering: If Israel hasn't kept doing stuff like blocading the region, building houses on the west bank, building a wall trough the palestinian territory, detaining people seemingly at random, shooting protestors and all that stuff... Would Hamas even have been elected? I am not saying that Hamas is not evil, but I do think that some of Israel's objectives, stances and methods are what led to the organization's creation and rise to power in the first place. Endless circle of violence.

Spoon mentoined that Israel's actions are very much like the US's actions in Afghanistan and Iraq in the war on terror, but those actions did destabalize the region as well.

What I don't get is how you don't see you've got things backwards. Why did they blockade the region? To attempt to put a stop to all those annoying rockets they keep firing from being imported. Would this blockade have been in effect if the palestinians never would have started firing rockets and **** toward Israel in the first place? Most lilkely not.
Building that wall, again. A reaction toward palestinian suicide bombers, and apparantly it seems to do pretty well.

Israel argues that the barrier is necessary to protect Israeli civilians from Palestinian terrorism, including the suicide bombing attacks that increased significantly during the Second Intifada.[6] There has been a reduced number of incidents of suicide bombings since the construction of the barrier. According to statistics published by the Israeli government, between 2000 and July 2003, when the "first continuous segment" of the barrier was built, 73 Palestinian suicide bombings were carried out from the West Bank, killing 293 Israelis and injuring over 1,900. However, from August 2003 to the end of 2006, only 12 attacks were carried out, killing 64 Israelis and wounding 445.[7] Supporters argue that this is indicative of the barrier being effective in preventing such attacks.

Yet you make it out like the Jews are building walls just to piss of palestinians. Wierd.
Shooting protestors happens all over the world, I'm not saying this makes it a right/good thing to do or anything, but from what I've seen from palestinian protestors... none of them seem to be exactly peaceful in their protests. The house building is one thing I do agree with you on, that's definitely a provokation. And the way how these colonization projects sometimes go, its kind of jerk thing to do.

But all in all, it's pretty much always the case that the palestinians are acting like jerks, then Israel responds to it. And then the palestinians are going full victim mode, shout at the media how they are so poor and oppressed by the big mean jews.

[Colonol Dekker]

Is this a looping thread yet?
I'm watching it and reading it. It's a bit like a tennis final, back and forth etc.

[Grizzly]

What I don't get is how you don't see you've got things backwards. Why did they blockade the region? To attempt to put a stop to all those annoying rockets they keep firing from being imported. Would this blockade have been in effect if the palestinians never would have started firing rockets and **** toward Israel in the first place? Most lilkely not.
Building that wall, again. A reaction toward palestinian suicide bombers, and apparantly it seems to do pretty well.

Yet, the wall is built Yet why is the wall built INSIDE the palestinian territories? Constructing a wall on your border makes sense, constructing a wall in another country's territory much less so.

Yet you make it out like the Jews are building walls just to piss of palestinians. Wierd.
---
But all in all, it's pretty much always the case that the palestinians are acting like jerks, then Israel responds to it. And then the palestinians are going full victim mode, shout at the media how they are so poor and oppressed by the big mean jews.

My point is that Israel's actions do give the palestinians the ammunition to do exactly that (it seems hard to argue that the palestinians are not in fact poor and opressed by the big Israeli's, see picture above, the settlements and the other stuff going on violating the 4th geneva convention and everything).It seems hopelesly counter-intiutive, and I don't see how it fits the "social contract" narrative.

[Luis Dias]

You seem to have forgotten that Palestine isn't a recognized country by Israel yet. Hamas ****ed up every chance of getting into a good path of reconcilliation because they are not interested in such. They have to be neutralized. If Gaza can't do so on its own (as you put it, Israel "gives" palestinians reasons to hate them and so on), then Israel has no other choice but to go there and do so themselves. No matter how sympathetic I am with the Palestinians, political groups like Hamas have no place in our planet and should be erradicated.

[Grizzly]

You seem to have forgotten that Palestine isn't a recognized country by Israel yet. Hamas ****ed up every chance of getting into a good path of reconcilliation because they are not interested in such.

Palestina is much more then just Hamas though. I agree about the whole Gaza strip (in fact, I proposed the full annexation of that area a while back in this thread), but when I look at the West Bank, I get the distinct impression that the current government of Israel is also not very much interested in peace.

[Aardwolf]

So, srs question: has Israel ever asked for international assistance in dealing with these threats?

[karajorma]

Yet I do keep wondering: If Israel hasn't kept doing stuff like blocading the region, building houses on the west bank, building a wall trough the palestinian territory, detaining people seemingly at random, shooting protestors and all that stuff... Would Hamas even have been elected?

Israel systematically hobbled Fatah, probably even going as far as to poison Yasser Arafat. In doing so, they pretty much made them unelectable. Hamas seemed to be the only party in the region capable of actually doing anything. It's not bloody surprising they were elected.

Yet everyone wants to put the entire blame for Hamas being in power on the Palestinians who were simply doing what pretty much everyone else does and voting for whoever they thought would get **** done in the short term.

Are we really going to hold the downtrodden and under-educated Palestinians to a standard that the citizens of most western countries are unable to live up to themselves?

[Luis Dias]

Yes, because that was what we did regarding Germany in World War 2. No matter how you could draw a causal line between the Treaty of Versailles and the Holocaust, what really matters is that the decision of the German people to have those crooks near the political power was not a good idea at all and this should be a lesson for all time. Voting in a party that has genocide and the destruction of entire countries / peoples around them as a program should always be a taboo, and if the Palestinian people didn't know it then, well they can learn.

I'm not excusing Israel of the **** they are and have done. They shouldn't, IMHO, have decided to go for this particular Op for example*, but if you can't distinguish between a hawkish conservative warish party line and a genocidal, maniacal, fanatical party, then well little hope we have.


*Having started it, they should "play their part to the bloody end".